Kidney injury molecule-1 : Current Opinion in Critical Care (original) (raw)
Renal system: Edited by Rinaldo Bellomo
aRenal Division, Brigham and Women's Hospital, USA
bDepartment of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
cRenal Division, Peking University First Hospital, Beijing, China
Correspondence to Joseph V. Bonventre, MD, PhD, Renal Division, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Institutes of Medicine, 4 Blackfan Circle, Boston, MA 02115, USA E-mail: [email protected]
Abstract
Purpose of review
To review the new findings about the physiological roles of kidney injury molecule-1 (KIM-1) and the rapidly expanding evidence for this molecule as a promising biomarker in preclinical kidney toxicity evaluation and various human kidney diseases.
Recent findings
KIM-1 has attracted increasing interest because of its possible pathophysiological role in modulating tubular damage and repair. There is rapidly accumulating evidence from both animal models and clinical studies that urinary KIM-1 is a sensitive and specific urinary biomarker for various forms of nephrotoxic injury, cardiac surgery-induced kidney injury, transplant rejection, and chronic kidney diseases.
Summary
KIM-1 mediates epithelial phagocytosis in the injured kidney converting the proximal epithelial cell into a phagocyte, with potentially important pathophysiological implications for modulation of the immune response and repair process after injury. KIM-1 serves as a highly sensitive and specific urinary biomarker for kidney injury and may also be a therapeutic target for various kidney diseases.
© 2010 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Inc.