Drugs, diabetes, and genes involved in kidney injury

Some drugs can damage the kidneys. Within 2 days, this can cause your kidneys to stop working right. This is called acute kidney injury (AKI). Diabetic patients are specifically prone to kidney injury. There is no way to know which patients will get AKI after taking these drugs. This project’s goal is to find genes that can predict which patients may be at risk. The researchers previously found a change in a water transporter gene in mice that may be involved. This change led to kidney damage in mice much like that seen in patients with drug-induced AKI. The researchers looked for the changes in this gene in BioVU DNA samples from patients with AKI. They found that many diabetic patients with the gene change were more likely to get long-term, chronic, kidney disease than diabetic patients with unaltered gene The researchers are now looking at a larger group of patients to confirm this link between the gene change and the risk to develop chronic kidney disease in diabetic patients Being able to identify diabetic patients at risk may improve their care. Doctors could monitor these patients more closely and, if necessary, change the drug the patient is on.