Counting glomeruli and podocytes
- 1 April 2015
- journal article
- review article
- Published by Ovid Technologies (Wolters Kluwer Health) in Current Opinion in Nephrology and Hypertension
- Vol. 24 (3), 224-30
- https://doi.org/10.1097/mnh.0000000000000121
Abstract
There is currently much interest in the numbers of both glomeruli and podocytes. This interest stems from a greater understanding of the effects of suboptimal fetal events on nephron endowment, the associations between low nephron number and chronic cardiovascular and kidney disease in adults, and the emergence of the podocyte depletion hypothesis. Obtaining accurate and precise estimates of glomerular and podocyte number has proven surprisingly difficult. When whole kidneys or large tissue samples are available, design-based stereological methods are considered gold standard because they are based on principles that negate systematic bias. However, these methods are often tedious and time consuming, and oftentimes inapplicable when dealing with small samples such as biopsies. Therefore, novel methods suitable for small tissue samples, and innovative approaches to facilitate high throughput measurements, such as MRI to estimate glomerular number and flow cytometry to estimate podocyte number, have recently been described. This review describes current gold-standard methods for estimating glomerular and podocyte number, as well as methods developed in the past 3 years. We are now better placed than ever before to accurately and precisely estimate glomerular and podocyte number, and examine relationships between these measurements and kidney health and disease.Keywords
This publication has 53 references indexed in Scilit:
- Why and how we determine nephron numberPediatric Nephrology, 2013
- Low Glomerular Density with Glomerulomegaly in Obesity-Related GlomerulopathyClinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, 2012
- Glomerular Density-Associated Changes in Clinicopathological Features of Minimal Change Nephrotic Syndrome in AdultsAmerican Journal of Nephrology, 2011
- Measuring glomerular number and size in perfused kidneys using MRIAmerican Journal of Physiology-Renal Physiology, 2011
- In Utero Origins of Adult Insulin Resistance and Vascular DysfunctionSeminars in Reproductive Medicine, 2011
- Glomerular Structure and Function Require Paracrine, Not Autocrine, VEGF–VEGFR-2 SignalingJournal of the American Society of Nephrology, 2010
- Glomerular Density in Renal Biopsy Specimens Predicts the Long-Term Prognosis of IgA NephropathyClinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, 2010
- The podocyte's response to injury: Role in proteinuria and glomerulosclerosisKidney International, 2006
- Glomerular number and size in autopsy kidneys: The relationship to birth weightKidney International, 2003
- Glomerular damage after uninephrectomy in young rats. I. Hypertrophy and distortion of capillary architectureKidney International, 1992