Stories about: Division of Nephrology

Skewed T-cell pathway may help explain transplant rejection, autoimmune diseases

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Th17 transplant rejection
Researchers discover a pathway that controls our T helper cell profiles (Fawn Gracey illustration)

Second in a two-part series on transplant tolerance. (See part one.)

Our immune system has two major kinds of T cells. T helper cells, also known as effector T cells, tend to rev up our immune responses, while T regulatory cells tend to suppress or downregulate them. Last week we reported that bolstering populations of T regulatory cells might help people tolerate organ transplants better. A new study turned its focus to T helper cells, and found that an imbalance of these cells causes an exaggerated immune response that may also contribute to transplant rejection.

The study also showed, in mice and in human cells in a dish, that the immune imbalance can be potentially reversed pharmacologically. Findings were published yesterday in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. …

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Precision medicine for end-stage kidney failure? 40 percent of kids needing transplants have identifiable mutations

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People forming a kidney shape - indicating that not all ESRD is alike and that it can have multiple genetic causes

In adults, end-stage renal disease, or ESRD, is most commonly a complication of diabetes or hypertension. In children, teens and young adults, it’s a different picture entirely. New research finds that more than half of people needing a kidney transplant before age 25 have a congenital anomaly of the kidney or urinary tract, and that 40 percent have an identifiable genetic cause of ESRD. Knowing these genetic underpinnings can inform better care for patients with kidney disease, says study leader Friedhelm Hildebrandt, MD, chief of the Division of Nephrology at Boston Children’s Hospital.

Hildebrandt and his colleagues drew on 263 families whose child received a new kidney at Boston Children’s between 2007 and 2017, before the age of 25. In 68 families, the team was able to perform whole-exome sequencing, comparing their DNA with a normal reference sample. …

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Pre-treated blood stem cells reverse type 1 diabetes in mice

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autoimmune attack in type 1 diabetes
In type 1 diabetes, autoreactive T-cells (like the one in yellow) attack insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas. What if blood stem cells could be taught to neutralize them? (Image: Andrea Panigada)

Type 1 diabetes is caused by an immune attack on the pancreatic beta cells that produce insulin. To curb the attack, some researchers have tried rebooting patients’ immune systems with an autologous bone-marrow transplant, infusing them with their own blood stem cells. But this method has had only partial success.

New research in today’s Science Translational Medicine suggests a reason why.

“We found that in diabetes, blood stem cells are defective, promoting inflammation and possibly leading to the onset of disease,” says Paolo Fiorina, MD, PhD, of Boston Children’s Hospital, senior investigator on the study.

But they also found that the defect can be fixed — by pre-treating the blood stem cells with small molecules or with gene therapy, to get them to make more of a protein called PD-L1.

In experiments, the treated stem cells homed to the pancreas and reversed hyperglycemia in diabetic mice, curing almost all of them of diabetes in the short term. One third maintained normal blood sugar levels for the duration of their lives. …

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Galloway-Mowat mutations have dual target: kidney cells, neurons

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Evidence of disease in GAMOS patients
Disease phenotype of GAMOS patients. Left: Kidney cells show signs of nephrotic syndrome. Right: Anomalies in brain development

With the help of more than 100 clinical collaborators around the world, Friedhelm Hildebrandt, MD has received thousands of blood samples from patients with nephrotic syndrome. They have helped Hildebrandt’s lab determine several underlying causes of this serious kidney disorder, in which high levels of protein are expelled in the urine.

“Nephrotic syndrome is not one disease; in fact, we already know that it is 55 different diseases,” says Hildebrandt, chief of the Division of Nephrology at Boston Children’s Hospital.

Over the course of time, Hildebrandt’s lab has discovered 35 of the more than 55 genes that can cause nephrotic syndrome. Identifying the different genetic pieces of the puzzle can help tailor a precision medicine approach to treating patients.

The latest piece, published earlier this month in Nature Genetics, is a set of four single-gene mutations that cause Galloway-Mowat syndrome (GAMOS) a rare disorder causing early-onset nephrotic syndrome and, often, microcephaly (abnormally small head size). Until now, the genetic changes underlying GAMOS and why they affect two disparate organs — the brain and kidney — have not been well understood.  …

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Decoding kidney disease, one gene at a time

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blood samples chronic kidney disease
More than a third of chronic kidney diseases are caused by single mutations on single genes (Image: Graham Colm)

Part 2 of a two-part series on kidney disease. Part 1 is here.

Friedhelm Hildebrandt, MD, receives around one blood sample in the mail per day from a patient with chronic kidney disease. Over 10 years, he’s collected more than 5,000 samples from patients all over the world—in hopes of finding the genetic mutations that cause them and, ultimately, new treatments.

Consider the mutation in an 8-month-old boy from Turkey, who had fluid collection under his skin and elevated protein in his urine—signs that his kidneys were failing. Doctors identified his disease as a form of nephrotic syndrome, one of the three main types of chronic kidney disease. The disease was proving to be hard to treat: Ten weeks of steroids had produced no result, and an immunosuppressant hadn’t been effective enough to justify its harsh side effects.

Only within the last year, genetic research has revealed that more than 30 percent of childhood chronic kidney diseases—like this child’s—stem from single mutations in single genes.
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