Investigating the renal microvasculature in polycystic kidney disease

英国有6万人长期患有严重的肾脏疾病。目前还没有治愈方法，患者需要透析或移植。长期肾脏疾病的主要原因之一是多囊肾。我们先前的工作表明，多囊肾进行性衰退的最早事件之一是肾脏小血管的变化。此外，我们已经证明，使用恢复和稳定这些血管的蛋白质的治疗可以改善疾病的进展。然而，我们还不完全了解这些治疗方法是如何起作用的。在这项提案中，伦敦大学学院大奥蒙德街儿童健康研究所和曼彻斯特大学的一个科学家和临床医生团队将使用高分辨率成像、高通量测序技术和复制多囊肾病的模型来研究这一点。这些研究将增强我们对血管如何参与肾脏健康和疾病的了解。此外，如果这些研究成功，它可能成为未来肾脏患者令人兴奋的治疗途径。

60,000 people in the UK have long term severe kidney disease. There is currently no cure and patients require dialysis or transplantation. One of the leading causes of long term kidney disease is polycystic kidneys. Our previous work has shown that one of the earliest events in the progressive decline of polycystic kidneys is changes in the small blood vessels of the kidney. Furthermore, we have shown that treatments using proteins which restore and stabilise these blood vessels improve disease progression. However, we do not yet fully understand how these treatments work. This will be investigated in this proposal by a team of scientists and clinicians based at the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health and the University of Manchester using high resolution imaging, high-throughput sequencing technology and models which replicate polycystic kidney disease. These investigations will enhance our knowledge of how blood vessels are involved in kidney health and disease. Furthermore, if these studies are successful, it could be a new exciting therapeutic avenue for kidney patients in the future.