Development of a Functional Glomerulus at the Organ Level on a Chip to Mimic Hypertensive Nephropathy

Glomerular hypertension is an important factor exacerbating glomerular diseases to end-stage renal diseases because, ultimately, it results in glomerular sclerosis (especially in hypertensive and diabetic nephropathy). The precise mechanism of glomerular sclerosis caused by glomerular hypertension i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports 2016-08, Vol.6 (1), p.31771, Article 31771
Main Authors: Zhou, Mengying, Zhang, Xulang, Wen, Xinyu, Wu, Taihua, Wang, Weidong, Yang, Mingzhou, Wang, Jing, Fang, Ming, Lin, Bingcheng, Lin, Hongli
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cytoskeleton
Diabetes mellitus
Disease
Drug screening
End-stage renal disease
Endothelial cells
Fluid flow
Glomerulus
Hypertension
Kidney diseases
Leakage
Microfluidics
Mimicry
Nephropathy
Sclerosis
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Summary:Glomerular hypertension is an important factor exacerbating glomerular diseases to end-stage renal diseases because, ultimately, it results in glomerular sclerosis (especially in hypertensive and diabetic nephropathy). The precise mechanism of glomerular sclerosis caused by glomerular hypertension is unclear, due partly to the absence of suitable in vitro or in vivo models capable of mimicking and regulating the complex mechanical forces and/or organ-level disease processes. We developed a "glomerulus-on-a-chip" (GC) microfluidic device. This device reconstitutes the glomerulus with organ-level glomerular functions to create a disease model-on-a chip that mimics hypertensive nephropathy in humans. It comprises two channels lined by closely opposed layers of glomerular endothelial cells and podocytes that experience fluid flow of physiological conditions to mimic the glomerular microenvironment in vivo. Our results revealed that glomerular mechanical forces have a crucial role in cellular cytoskeletal rearrangement as well as the damage to cells and their junctions that leads to increased glomerular leakage observed in hypertensive nephropathy. Results also showed that the GC could readily and flexibly meet the demands of a renal-disease model. The GC could provide drug screening and toxicology testing, and create potential new personalized and accurate therapeutic platforms for glomerular disease.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/srep31771