bioRxiv Science⌕ Search

bioRxiv · 10.1101/2024.01.17.575664

Comparative analysis of kidney transplantation modeled using precision-cut kidney slices and kidney transplantation in pigs

Abstract

Kidney transplants are at risk for so far unavoidable ischemia-reperfusion injury. Several experimental kidney transplantation models are available to study this injury, but all have their own limitations. Here, we describe precision-cut kidney slices (PCKS) as a novel model of kidney ischemia-reperfusion injury in comparison with pig and human kidney transplantation. Following bilateral nephrectomy in pigs, we applied warm ischemia (1h), cold ischemia (20h) and a reperfusion period (4h) to one whole kidney undergoing transplantation to a recipient pig and, in parallel, established PCKS undergoing ischemia and modeled reperfusion. Histopathological assessment revealed the presence of some but not all morphological features of tubular injury in PCKS as seen in pig kidney transplantation. RNAseq demonstrated that the majority of changes occurred after reperfusion only, with a partial overlap between PCKS and kidney transplantation, with some differences in transcriptional response attributable to systemic inflammatory responses and immune cell migration. Comparison of PCKS and pig kidney transplantation with RNAseq data from human kidney biopsies by gene set enrichment analysis revealed that both PCKS and pig kidney transplantation reproduced the post-reperfusion pattern of human kidney transplantation. In contrast, only post-cold ischemia PCKS and pig kidney partially resembled the gene set of human acute kidney injury. Overall, the present study established that a PCKS protocol can model kidney transplantation and its reperfusion-related damage on a histological and a transcriptomic level. PCKS may thus expand the toolbox for developing novel therapeutic strategies against ischemia-reperfusion injury.

Explore related subjects

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Moor, M. B., Nordström, J., Burmakin, M., Raki, M., Al-Saad, S., Nowak, G., Wennberg, L., Patrakka, J., Olauson, H.. 2024-01-20. Comparative analysis of kidney transplantation modeled using precision-cut kidney slices and kidney transplantation in pigs. https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.01.17.575664

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related preprints

Prevention of Unc13a cryptic splicing is sufficient to preserve memory

TDP-43 dysfunction is thought to underlie frontotemporal dementia and limbic-predominant age-related TDP-43 encephalopathy, neurodegenerative dementias currently without effective therapy. Therapeutic strategies are designed to correct individual cryptic targets of TDP-43, such as UNC13A, whereby its cryptic splicing compromises synaptic function, yet the sufficiency of such an approach to prevent memory deficits is unclear. Using a forebrain neuron-specific TDP-43 knockout mouse model that recapitulates TDP-43 dysfunction occurring during early stages of human disorders, we found here that prevention of cryptic splicing to include that of Unc13a attenuated memory deficits. We show that genetic ablation of Unc13a cryptic exon solely in such TDP-43 knockout mice is sufficient to preserve cognition, supporting the clinical value of targeting UNC13A to mitigate memory deficits. Prevention of cryptic splicing of multiple targets of TDP-43 additionally attenuate neuron loss. For optimal outcomes in TDP-43 related dementias, these findings thus strongly support strategies designed to repress cryptic splicing of multiple targets of TDP-43, including UNC13A.

pathology↗

Social-Cognitive Dysregulation Model of Misophonia: Perspective from a Behavioural Study

Misophonia is increasingly conceptualized as more than a disorder of sound tolerance, with trigger over-reactivity shaped by the social meaning of sounds, inferred intentions, and representations of others actions. We tested a social-cognitive dysregulation model of misophonia in (N = 341) adults using behavioural measures of Theory of Mind and emotion recognition, alongside measures of reflective functioning, empathy, alexithymia, and mimicry. Dimensional associations with misophonia severity and its five different dimensions were examined while accounting for age, sex, sound sensitivity, and anxiety/depressive symptoms. Increased misophonia severity was associated with less accurate and slower mental-state inference and emotion recognition. ToM accuracy effects were evident for more complex, cognitive, and affective mentalizing, but not for simpler mentalizing or physical control judgments, while emotion-recognition accuracy differences emerged for positive but not negative stimuli. Greater severity was also characterized by reduced certainty and greater uncertainty about mental states, greater difficulty identifying one s own feelings, and elevated alexithymia, whereas global self-reported empathy was largely preserved. Misophonia severity further predicted a greater propensity to mimic trigger-producing actions or sounds; 41% of participants exceeding the S-Five clinical cutoff (> 87) endorsed mimicry, which was particularly associated with a subjective restoration of control. Findings remained robust following influential-case sensitivity analyses. These results reveal a selective disturbance in self-other representation spanning mentalizing, emotion decoding, emotional self-representation, and embodied regulatory processes. They position misophonia within a broader social-cognitive framework in which auditory-affective reactivity may intersect with altered inferential and sensorimotor processing, while stopping short of causal inference.

pathology↗

Lamin A/C depletion from myofibers and satellite cells in mice reveals selective muscle pathology

Mutations in the laminA/C gene (LMNA), which encodes the nuclear lamina proteins lamin A and lamin C (lamin A/C), have been linked to different human diseases affecting different tissues. Most LMNA mutations cause cardiomyopathy and muscular dystrophy, such as autosomal dominant Emery-Dreifuss muscular dystrophy. Recent studies to understand striated muscle laminopathies have taken advantage of Lmna conditional knockout mice to examine the effects of lamin A/C depletion in cardiomyocytes and cardiac fibroblasts. However, the role of lamin A/C in skeletal muscle has largely been uncharacterized using conditional knockout mice. We used different mouse lines to deplete lamin A/C from specific cell types in striated muscle. Lamin A/C depletion from fetal myofibers and cardiomyocytes led to no observable phenotype in the skeletal muscles despite leading to dramatic heart dilation and early lethality. Depletion of lamin A/C from both skeletal myofibers and satellite cells was lethal, with the most dramatic myopathic abnormalities observed in the intrinsic muscles of the tongue. The presence of lamin A/C in skeletal muscle satellite cells prevented the development of lethal myopathy when the proteins were deleted only from differentiated myofibers. Overall, our results provide a foundation for understanding the roles of lamin A/C in muscle maintenance and development, including the variable skeletal muscle involvement and much more invariant cardiomyopathy in patients with LMNA mutations.

pathology↗