Collapsing glomerulopathy: beyond serendipity in mouse genetics

Abstract

Clinical correlates suggest that collapsing glomerulopathy results from the pathogenic interaction between patients' intractable genetic susceptibilities and environmental insults. When the environmental insults include a virus that introduces its own pathogenic genes, the interactions become more complex. Chan et al. combine reverse and forward genetic techniques in mice toward understanding this complexity with HIV and identify candidate genetic modifiers of collapsing glomerulopathy.

Figure 1

The interplay of forward and reverse genetics in identifying genetic disease components. Environmental factors may influence overall disease severity or progression, which may uncover additional secondary genetic factors that predispose to disease. Histopathology images adapted from Hallman et al. (used with permission).