Murer L, Zacchello G, Dall'Amico R, Masiero M, Montini G, Basso G, Zacchello F
Department of Pediatrics, University of Padova, Italy.
J Nephrol. 1997 Nov-Dec;10(6):318-24.
We investigated the immunohistochemical distribution of endothelin (ET) in 22 graft biopsies from kidney-transplanted patients. Like normal kidney tissue, 6/22 biopsies showed either no or only very weak ET positivity in the vascular endothelium. In the other 16 cases ET staining was marked on the vascular endothelium and wall (9/16), inflammatory infiltrates (11/16), glomeruli (7/16) and tubules (5/16). ET positivity in glomeruli and inflammatory infiltrates correlated with the degree of glomerular damage and interstitial inflammation but no correlation was found between the immunohistochemical results and the clinical variables considered. ET plasma levels (ET-PL) in patients (5.13 + 1.77 pmol/L) did not differ significantly from age-matched healthy controls (3.76 + 0.93 pmol/L), nor did ET urinary excretion (ET-U/CR-U) (33.94 + 21.89 and 24.94 + 8.5 pmol/mmol/L respectively). Neither ET-PL nor ET-U/CR-U was correlated with histological and immunohistochemical data or with the clinical variables. Our study suggests a potential role of ET as a local pro-inflammatory and growth factor in renal allografts and confirms its importance in the sequence of events involved in the progression of kidney damage.
我们研究了22例肾移植患者移植肾活检组织中内皮素（ET）的免疫组化分布情况。与正常肾组织一样，22例活检组织中有6例在血管内皮中未显示或仅显示非常微弱的ET阳性。在其他16例中，ET染色在血管内皮和血管壁（9/16）、炎性浸润（11/16）、肾小球（7/16）和肾小管（5/16）中呈阳性。肾小球和炎性浸润中的ET阳性与肾小球损伤程度和间质炎症相关，但免疫组化结果与所考虑的临床变量之间未发现相关性。患者的血浆内皮素水平（ET-PL）（5.13±1.77 pmol/L）与年龄匹配的健康对照（3.76±0.93 pmol/L）相比无显著差异，尿内皮素排泄量（ET-U/CR-U）也无显著差异（分别为33.94±21.89和24.94±8.5 pmol/mmol/L）。ET-PL和ET-U/CR-U均与组织学和免疫组化数据或临床变量无关。我们的研究表明ET作为肾移植中一种局部促炎和生长因子具有潜在作用，并证实了其在肾损伤进展相关事件序列中的重要性。
