Little is known about the molecular changes that occur in the tubulointerstitium of patients with IgAN or how these changes may affect progression to kidney failure. To date no studies have investigated whether proteome changes in the tubulointerstitium of IgAN can predict prognosis. In the present study, we microdissected areas with mild tubulointerstitial changes and compared the tubulointerstitial proteome between progressive and non-progressive IgAN patients. The proteins that most significantly predicted a progressive disease course were periostin and cathepsin G. Immunohistochemistry confirmed that periostin staining was stronger in patients with progressive disease, and that periostin was mostly localized in the peritubular areas. Pathway analyses revealed that immune system proteins and rho GTP-ase signaling pathways were upregulated and mitochondrial translation pathways were downregulated in patients with progressive IgAN.
In IgAN nephropathy the immune complexes formed between galactose-deficient IgA1 and antibodies stimulate mesangial cells to secrete various proinflammatory and profibrotic cytokines, components of the extracellular matrix, growth factors, and release reactive oxygen species [12]. These mediators will not only activate neighboring mesangial cells but from other disease models we also know that these could activate proximal tubular epithelial cells (PTECs) [12]. In CKD models in general it is well known that activated PTEC can produce local inflammatory mediators [13] which will attract inflammatory cells, resulting in a positive feedback loop of activation [2]. In our study we show that proteins involved in the immune system are important in progression of IgAN as 23 of the 67 significantly more abundant proteins were related to the immune system. Some of the most abundant proteins involved in the immune system which were significantly more abundant in progressive vs non progressive IgA were cathepsin G, neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL) and cathepsin H. Our study did not identify specific pathways within the immune system that seemed to be especially important in IgAN. These findings are in concordance with the findings from our previous studies of glomerular changes in the same group of patients [ref]. In these studies, proteins belonging to the immune system also had increase abundance, but different proteins had higher abundance in tubulointerstitium vs glomeruli.
Abundance of tubulointerstitial periostin was nearly nine times higher in progressive vs non-progressive IgAN patients. Periostin is an extracellular protein, lately shown to be involved in both AKI [14] and CKD [15]. In a mice model of unilateral ureteral obstruction, periostin was synthesized by the collecting duct cells and was associated with progression of renal lesions [16]. Increased periostin expression has also been observed in tubular epithelium of patients with diabetic renal disease and urinary periostin levels were also significantly elevated in these patients [17]. In IgAN, higher urinary periostin/creatinine ratios was associated with decreasing eGFR during follow-up and tissue periostin expression was correlated with urinary periostin/creatine ratio and with the renal outcome [18]. Stronger periostin staining by immunohistochemistry in progressive IgAN patients confirmed the proteomic results and localization of the staining was mostly peritubular. In our previous study of glomeruli in IgAN, we also showed that periostin abundance was higher in IgAN as compared to control patients and that higher periostin abundance associated with progressive IgAN [11]. We therefore suggest that periostin should be further investigated as a novel risk marker in IgAN.
In the present study signaling by rho GTP-ases pathway showed increased protein abundances in progressive IgAN as compared with non progressive. Rho GTPases contribute to a wide range of cellular processes including organization of the actin and microtubule cytoskeletons, vesicle trafficking, cell cycle progression, cell morphogenesis, cell polarity and cell migration [19]. Rho GTPases have also been shown to be involved in numerous pathologies such as cancer development and progression [20], hypertension [21] and neurodegenerative diseases [22]. In the kidney, Rho-kinase has been shown to be involved in aldosterone-induced renal injury [23], diabetic renal disease [24] and to the pathogenesis of dialysis-related peritoneal fibrosis through epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) [25]. In a model of human renal proximal tubular epithelial cell line, it has been shown that Rho/ROCK signaling pathway plays a key role in the dissolution of tight junctions, an early and reversible event in EMT [26]. EMT is the process by which epithelial cells lose their epithelial proprieties and convert into mesenchymal cells. This mesenchymal cells are then able to migrate, secrete proinflammatory mediators and extracellular matrix (ECM) and thus promote fibrosis. In our study 14 EMT related protein wore more abundant in progressive IgAN as compared with non-progressive.
The mitochondrial translation pathway were also significantly affected in our study. All changed proteins in this pathway were less abundant in progressive IgAN as compared with non-progressive, indicating a mitochondrial dysfunction. Mitochondrial dysfunction is emerging as an important contributor to the development of CKD. The mechanism is not fully understood but it has been suggested that changes in mitochondrial morphology and mitochondrial remodeling, enhanced mitochondrial oxidative stress, and a significant decrease in mitochondrial biogenesis and in ATP production are factors contributing to the progress of CKD [27]. It was unfortunately not possible in our study to investigate this further, for example by further quantification of mitochondrial amount or function.
Our study has several weakness. The main weakness is that number of patients were rather low, but higher numbers were difficult due to the time-consuming and expensive process of microdissection and tandem mass-spectrometry. We consider it a strength of the study that clinical characteristics did not differ between progressive and non-progressive IgAN patients, but in retrospect we found that three of the patients with progressive IgAN had T-scores of at least one, as compared to none of the non-progressive IgAN patients. It is important to note that patients were selected on the base of similar clinical characteristics, and MEST score was done in retrospect. The significantly different T score underlines the importance of tubular changes in IgAN. In our study we did not microdissected tissue with tubular atrophy or interstitial fibrosis and our findings can thus not be explained by advanced tubulointerstitial changes.
In conclusion, our study describes extensive changes of the tubulointerstitial proteome of patients with progressive IgAN. In our opinion, the most interesting finding is that tubulointerstitial periostin seem to be a novel marker of progressive IgAN. This should be investigated further in other cohorts of IgAN and might also be relevant in other kidney diseases.