Laboratory of Molecular Nephrology, IRCCS Istituto Giannina Gaslini, 16147 Genova, Italy.
Renal Unit, Department of Medicine, University/Hospital of Verona, Piazzale A. Stefani 1, 37126 Verona, Italy.
Int J Mol Sci. 2019 Nov 5;20(21):5517. doi: 10.3390/ijms20215517.
Medullary sponge kidney (MSK) disease is a rare and neglected kidney condition often associated with nephrocalcinosis/nephrolithiasis and cystic anomalies in the precalyceal ducts. Little is known about the pathogenesis of this disease, so we addressed the knowledge gap using a proteomics approach. The protein content of microvesicles/exosomes isolated from urine of 15 MSK and 15 idiopathic calcium nephrolithiasis (ICN) patients was investigated by mass spectrometry, followed by weighted gene coexpression network analysis, support vector machine (SVM) learning, and partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) to select the most discriminative proteins. Proteomic data were verified by ELISA. We identified 2998 proteins in total, 1764 (58.9%) of which were present in both vesicle types in both diseases. Among the MSK samples, only 65 (2.2%) and 137 (4.6%) proteins were exclusively found in the microvesicles and exosomes, respectively. Similarly, among the ICN samples, only 75 (2.5%) and 94 (3.1%) proteins were exclusively found in the microvesicles and exosomes, respectively. SVM learning and PLS-DA revealed a core panel of 20 proteins that distinguished extracellular vesicles representing each clinical condition with an accuracy of 100%. Among them, three exosome proteins involved in the lectin complement pathway maximized the discrimination between MSK and ICN: Ficolin 1, Mannan-binding lectin serine protease 2, and Complement component 4-binding protein β. ELISA confirmed the proteomic results. Our data show that the complement pathway is involved in the MSK, revealing a new range of potential therapeutic targets and early diagnostic biomarkers.
髓质海绵肾(MSK)疾病是一种罕见且被忽视的肾脏疾病,常与肾钙质沉着症/肾结石和前集合管的囊性异常有关。目前对这种疾病的发病机制知之甚少,因此我们使用蛋白质组学方法来解决这一知识空白。通过质谱法研究了来自 15 名 MSK 和 15 名特发性钙肾结石(ICN)患者尿液中分离的微泡/外泌体的蛋白质含量,随后进行加权基因共表达网络分析、支持向量机(SVM)学习和偏最小二乘判别分析(PLS-DA)以选择最具区分力的蛋白质。通过 ELISA 验证蛋白质组学数据。我们总共鉴定出 2998 种蛋白质,其中 1764 种(58.9%)存在于两种疾病的两种囊泡类型中。在 MSK 样本中,只有 65 种(2.2%)和 137 种(4.6%)蛋白质分别仅存在于微泡和外泌体中。同样,在 ICN 样本中,只有 75 种(2.5%)和 94 种(3.1%)蛋白质分别仅存在于微泡和外泌体中。SVM 学习和 PLS-DA 揭示了一个由 20 种蛋白质组成的核心面板,这些蛋白质可以准确区分代表每种临床情况的细胞外囊泡,准确率为 100%。其中,3 种参与凝集素补体途径的外泌体蛋白最大限度地区分了 MSK 和 ICN:ficolin 1、甘露聚糖结合凝集素丝氨酸蛋白酶 2 和补体成分 4 结合蛋白β。ELISA 验证了蛋白质组学结果。我们的数据表明补体途径参与了 MSK,揭示了一系列新的潜在治疗靶点和早期诊断生物标志物。