Screening for potential serum biomarkers in rat mesangial proliferative nephritis

Mesangial proliferative nephritis (MesPGN) is a common kidney disease worldwide. The main feature of the disease is mesangial cell proliferation-induced injury to kidney function. In this study, we explored serum biomarkers for kidney function injury in anti-Thy1 nephritis. We found that mesangial proliferation were increased on days 5 and 7, and recovered by day 14 in anti-Thy1 nephritis. 24-h urine protein, the ratio of urine protein to urine creatine, serum creatine, and blood urea nitrogen, were increased at days 5 and 7 in the model. We found that TXN, BET1, PrRP, VGF, and NPS differed strongly from controls on days 5 and, associated with kidney injury when detected by SELDI-TOF MS. Moreover, we applied LC-MS to detect differential protein expression and found A2M, C3, ITIH4, ITIH3, VDBP, AFM, and SERPINF2 to be upregulated, and ES1, HPX, SERPINC1, SERPINA1F, SERPINA4, SERPINA3K, SPI, TF, VNN3, SERPINF1, and PON1 to be downregulated, on days 5 and 7, associated with kidney injury. The levels of VNN3 and VDBP were validated by Western blotting. Overall, this study explored a group of candidate biomarkers of mesangial proliferation inducing kidney injury, to provide the basis of an assessment model for MesPGN in the future.