The Study Of Pathological Effects Of Local Aldosterone In Renal Tubulointerstitial Fibrosis

BackgroundThe mechanism of renal tubulointerstitial fibrosis has been one of the hot topics for a long time, yet there are still fewer effective strategies to prevent its chronic progression. Aldosterone (ALDO) is one of the major classical minalcorticoid hormones for sodium-potassium regulation. however, there has been a breakthrough in the field of aldosterone research in recent years, that is, aldosterone has been experimentally suggested to be another independent mediator for target organ fibrosis, especially in the cardiovascular system. Beside these import results, many experiments has already proven that aldosterone could be synthesized by some tissue or cells outside of adrenal gland, such as brain, heart and vascular endothelial cells etc. The aldosterone synthesized outside adrenal gland has been called local aldosterone in order to make it different from the classical one. Until now much attention has been focused on the relationship between aldosterone and organic fibrosis, at the same time, the signaling pathways which mediate the pathological effects of aldosterone have also attracted much attention because of the rapid progress in molecular biological techniques. However, the effects of alsosterone in the progression of renal tubulointerstitial fibrosis are not fully understood. Under such circumstance, we decided to make further investigation in the field of pathological effects of aldosterone in the pathogenesis of renal tubulointerstitial fibrosis.Objectives1. To observe whether the local ALDO may be synthesized by human renal proximal tubular cell line (HKC) and investigate whether endothelin-1 (ET-1) has effects on the production of local ALDO.