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Single-cell transcriptomics reveals common epithelial response patterns in human acute kidney injury

ABSTRACT: Background: Acute kidney injury (AKI) occurs frequently in critically ill patients and is associated with adverse outcomes. Cellular mechanisms underlying AKI and kidney cell responses to injury remain incompletely understood. Methods: We performed single-nuclei transcriptomics, bulk transcriptomics, molecular imaging studies, and conventional histology on kidney tissues from 8 individuals with severe AKI (stage 2 or 3 according to Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) criteria). Specimens were obtained within 1-2 hours after individuals had succumbed to critical illness associated with respiratory infections, with 4 of 8 individuals diagnosed with COVID-19. Control kidney tissues were obtained post-mortem or after nephrectomy from individuals without AKI. Results: High-depth single cell-resolved gene expression data of human kidneys affected by AKI revealed enrichment of novel injury-associated cell states within the major cell types of the tubular epithelium, in particular in proximal tubules, thick ascending limbs and distal convoluted tubules. Four distinct, hierarchically interconnected injured cell states were distinguishable and characterized by transcriptome patterns associated with oxidative stress, hypoxia, interferon response, and epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition, respectively. Transcriptome differences between individuals with AKI were driven primarily by the cell type-specific abundance of these four injury subtypes rather than by private molecular responses. AKI-associated changes in gene expression between individuals with and without COVID-19 were similar. Conclusions: The study provides an extensive resource of the cell type-specific transcriptomic responses associated with critical illness-associated AKI in humans, highlighting recurrent disease-associated signatures and inter-individual heterogeneity. Personalized molecular disease assessment in human AKI may foster the development of tailored therapies.

ORGANISM(S): Homo sapiens

PROVIDER: GSE210622 | GEO | 2022/09/08

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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Project description:Renal hypoxia is widespread in acute kidney injury (AKI) of various aetiologies. Hypoxia adaptation, conferred through the hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF), appears to be insufficient. Here we show that HIF activation in renal tubules through Pax8-rtTA-based inducible knockout of von Hippel-Lindau protein (VHL-KO) protects from rhabdomyolysis-induced AKI. In this model, histological observations indicate that injury mainly affects proximal convoluted tubules, with 5% necrosis at d1 and 40% necrosis at d2. HIF-1alpha up-regulation in distal tubules reflects renal hypoxia. However, lack of HIF in proximal tubules suggests insufficient adaptation by HIF. AKI in VHL-KO mice leads to prominent HIF activation in all nephron segments, as well as to reduced serum creatinine, serum urea, tubular necrosis, and apoptosis marker caspase-3 protein. At d1 after rhabdomyolysis, when tubular injury is potentially reversible, HIF mediated protection in AKI is associated with activated glycolysis, cellular glucose uptake and utilization, autophagy, vasodilation, and proton removal as demonstrated by qPCR, pathway enrichment analysis and immunohistochemistry. Together, our data provide evidence for a HIF-orchestrated multi-level shift towards glycolysis as a major mechanism for protection against acute tubular injury. All experiments were carried out in transgenic mice in which selective renal tubular VHL knockout (VHL-KO) was inducible by doxycycline (Reference: Mathia S, Paliege A, Koesters R, Peters H, Neumayer HH, Bachmann S, Rosenberger C. Action of hypoxia-inducible factor in liver and kidney from mice with Pax8-rtTA-based deletion of von Hippel-Lindau protein. Acta Physiol (Oxf). 2013; 207(3):565-76.). Four groups of animals were used: 1) controls: untreated mice; 2) VHL-KO: injected with doxycycline (0.1 mg per 10 g body weight SC), 4 days prior to sacrifice; 3) AKI: rhabdomyolysis; 4) VHL-KO/AKI: doxycycline plus rhabdomyolysis. To induce AKI, 50% glycerol (0.05 ml per 10 g body weight) was injected IM into the left hind limb under isoflurane narcosis. Drinking water was withdrawn between 20 h prior and 24 h after glycerol injection.

Project description:Microarray analysis of human kidneys with acute kidney injury (AKI) has been limited because such kidneys are seldom biopsied. However, all kidney transplants experience AKI, and early kidney transplants without rejection are an excellent model for human AKI: they are screened to exclude chronic kidney disease, frequently biopsied, and have extensive follow-up. We used histopathology and microarrays to compare indication biopsies from 28 transplants with AKI to 11 pristine protocol biopsies of stable transplants. Kidneys with AKI showed increased expression of 394 injury-repair response associated transcripts, including many known epithelial injury molecules (e.g. ITGB6, LCN2), tissue remodeling molecules (e.g. VCAN), and inflammation molecules (S100A8, ITGB3). Many other genes also predict the phenotype, depending on statistical filtering rules, including AKI biomarkers as HAVCR1 and IL18. Most mouse orthologs of the top injury-repair transcripts were increased in published mouse AKI models. Pathway analysis of the injury-repair transcripts revealed similarities to cancer, development, and cell movement. The injury-repair transcript score AKI kidneys correlated with reduced function, future recovery, brain death, and need for dialysis, but not future graft loss. In contrast, histologic features of "acute tubular injury" did not correlate with function or with the molecular changes. Thus the injury-repair associated transcripts represent a massive coordinate injury-repair response of kidney parenchyma to AKI, similar to mouse AKI models, and provide an objective measure for assessing the severity of AKI in kidney biopsies and validation for the use of many AKI biomarkers. AKI biopsies sample names and CEL files are from GSE21374. All consenting renal transplant patients undergoing biopsies for cause as standard of care between 09/2004 and 10/2007 at the university of Alberta or between 11/2006 and 02/2007 at the University of Illinois were included in the analysis. In addition to the cores required for standard histopathology, we collected one core for gene expression studies. the relationship between gene expression in the biopsy and subsequent graft loss was analyzed. This dataset is part of the TransQST collection.

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Single-cell transcriptomics reveals common epithelial response patterns in human acute kidney injury

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