Influence of endogenous prostaglandins on mTAL injury

We altered renal prostaglandin production by isolated rat kidneys in several ways to see if this would influence the susceptibility of cells lining the medullary thick ascending limb to injury. Rats were fed a diet containing either safflower oil (high in linoleic acid) or fish oil (low in arachidonate precursors) as a source of fat. After 90 min of perfusion, the kidneys of rats fed safflower oil showed only 32.7 +/- 6.7% of medullary thick ascending limb cells near the inner medulla with severe damage, whereas the same zone in perfused kidneys of rats fed fish oil showed 96.6 +/- 1.3% severely damaged cells (P less than 0.01). The protection afforded by safflower oil was accompanied by a doubling of urinary excretion of PGE2 and 6-keto-PGF1 alpha, and was eliminated by indomethacin, which suppressed prostaglandin synthesis. Perfusion with bradykinin also greatly increased prostaglandin excretion and reduced severe medullary thick ascending limb damage in the deepest zone of the outer medulla from 51.3 +/- 6.6% in controls to 28.5 +/- 5.9% (P less than 0.02). The protection provided by bradykinin was also completely reversed by indomethacin. The results suggest that endogenous prostaglandins serve a protective function against hypoxic injury for cells of the medullary thick ascending limb.