| BACKGROUNDFollowing the intensive and extensive studies on renal diseases in the past years, people come to a conclusion that the degree of renal tubulointerstitial damage is closely associated with the deteriorative degree of renal function and is the crucial prognostic factor for chronic renal diseases. The chronic renal tubulointerstitial damage might develop the renal interstitial fibrosis leading the end stage renal diseases (ESRD), no matter what the initial underlying renal disease is primary renal tubulointerstitial disease or secondary to the glomerular or renal vascular disease. The formation of renal interstitial fibrosis is a complicated and gradually progrssive process, in which many cells, growth factors, cytokines and vasoactive hormones are involved. Through the scientific research work in the past several decades, people got certain knowledge on the pathogenesis of renal interstitial fibrosis, but there are still some problems in this domain waiting to be further investigated. Endothelin-1 (ET-1) is the most potent vasoconstirctive peptide known, which was first isolated and purified from the supernatant of cultured porcine aortic endothelial cells by Japanese scholar Yanagisawa and his colleagues in 1988. The ET family comprises at least three isoforms, ET-1, ET-2 and ET-3. ET-1 is the major ET isoform, which may play a centrally important role in the pathogenesis of many disorders and is investigated most extensively and intensively compared with ET-2 and ET-3. With further research, people confirm that ET-1 is a very potent important inflammatory mediator besides its potent vasoconstrictor properties, which plays a pivotal role in a number of inflammatory conditions especially in the kidney. ET-1 exerts these important physiological and pathophysiological effects via binding to its specific receptors,... |
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