Effect of Renal Nerves on Chronic Kidney Disease

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Abstract Chronic kidney disease (CKD) remains a major public health problem causing severe morbidity and mortality in affected patients. The majority of CKD patients are treated with inhibitors of the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) or sodium glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT2) but the protection afforded by these agents is incomplete. Novel treatments are needed to advance substantially the care of CKD patients. In this regard, it is known that renal nerve activity is increased in CKD and can lead to downstream effects including hypertension, reduced function, proteinuria, and kidney disease progression. Renal denervation has been shown to protect against these effects but most clinical trials only include hypertensive-CKD patients or exclude advanced CKD patients entirely. Therefore, it is not known exactly which types of CKD can be effectively treated with renal denervation. Furthermore, the relative contributions of renal sensory afferent and sympathetic efferent nerves are not known. We hypothesize that CKD-related increases in renal inflammation activates renal sensory nerves, leading in turn to increased efferent nerve activity to worsen renal function, CKD progression and hypertension. Our proposal will analyze the activity of renal nerves during various forms of CKD in mice and whether denervation impacts disease progression. We will also search for the mediators of renal nerve activation during CKD. These novel insights would provide the rationale to broaden denervation studies to CKD patients and to understand more fully the role of renal nerves in the pathogenesis of CKD.