The USC Stem Cell laboratory of Andy McMahon has identified a type of injured cell that might contribute to the transition from an acute kidney injury to chronic kidney disease, as described in a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The same issue of PNAS also features an accompanying Q&A with McMahon to mark his recent election as a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

“Acute kidney injury can be a common side effect of surgery, sepsis or certain prescription drugs, and there is no effective treatment,” said McMahon, who is the W.M. Keck Provost and University Professor of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, and Biological Sciences at USC. “Even a mild or moderate injury can progress into chronic kidney disease, which affects 9.1 percent of the world’s population and causes 1.2 million deaths each year.”

The adult kidney lacks stem cells to regenerate damaged tissue in its approximately 1 million filtering units, which are called nephrons. Damage predominantly occurs in a segment of the nephron known as the proximal tubule. Fortunately, differentiated proximal tubule cells (PTCs) do have their own capacity to repair.

To understand this repair process, first authors Louisa M. S. Gerhardt, Jing Liu, and their colleagues in the McMahon Lab pioneered a way to track injured PTCs in lab mice by using a protein called keratin-20, which the cells tend to produce after acute kidney injury.

To read more, visit https://stemcell.keck.usc.edu/acute-kidney-injury.