Myrtani Pieri, Charalambos Stefanou, Apostolos Zaravinos, Kamil Erguler, Kostas Stylianou, George Lapathitis, Christos Karaiskos, Isavella Savva, Revekka Paraskeva, Harsh Dweep, Carsten Sticht, Natassa Anastasiadou, Ioanna Zouvani, Demetris Goumenos, Kyriakos Felekkis, Moin Saleem, Konstantinos Voskarides, Norbert Gretz, Constantinos Deltas
Thin-basement-membrane nephropathy (TBMN) and Alport syndrome (AS) are progressive collagen IV nephropathies caused by mutations in COL4A3/A4/A5 genes. These nephropathies invariably present with microscopic hematuria and frequently progress to proteinuria and CKD or ESRD during long-term follow-up. Nonetheless, the exact molecular mechanisms by which these mutations exert their deleterious effects on the glomerulus remain elusive. We hypothesized that defective trafficking of the COL4A3 chain causes a strong intracellular effect on the cell responsible for COL4A3 expression, the podocyte...
February 2014: Journal of the American Society of Nephrology: JASN