APOL1 Renal-Risk Variants Induce Mitochondrial Dysfunction

APOL1 G1 and G2 variants facilitate kidney disease in blacks. To elucidate the pathways whereby these variants contribute to disease pathogenesis, we established HEK293 cell lines stably expressing doxycycline-inducible (Tet-on) reference APOL1 G0 or the G1 and G2 renal-risk variants, and used Illumina human HT-12 v4 arrays and Affymetrix HTA 2.0 arrays to generate global gene expression data with doxycycline induction. Significantly altered pathways identified through bioinformatics analyses involved mitochondrial function; results from immunoblotting, immunofluorescence, and functional assays validated these findings. Overexpression of APOL1 by doxycycline induction in HEK293 Tet-on G1 and G2 cells led to impaired mitochondrial function, with markedly reduced maximum respiration rate, reserve respiration capacity, and mitochondrial membrane potential. Impaired mitochondrial function occurred before intracellular potassium depletion or reduced cell viability occurred. Analysis of global gene expression profiles in nondiseased primary proximal tubule cells from black patients revealed that the nicotinate phosphoribosyltransferase gene, responsible for NAD biosynthesis, was among the top downregulated transcripts in cells with two APOL1 renal-risk variants compared with those without renal-risk variants; nicotinate phosphoribosyltransferase also displayed gene expression patterns linked to mitochondrial dysfunction in HEK293 Tet-on APOL1 cell pathway analyses. These results suggest a pivotal role for mitochondrial dysfunction in APOL1-associated kidney disease.