[Novel biomarkers for diabetic nephropathy]

Abstract

Diabetic nephropathy is a leading cause of end-stage renal disease worldwide. An early clinical sign of this complication is an increase of urinary albumin excretion, called microalbuminuria, which is not only a predictor of the progression of nephropathy, but also an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Although microalbuminuria is clinically important to assess the prognosis of diabetic patients, it may be insufficient as an early and specific biomarker of diabetic nephropathy because of a large day-to-day variation and lack of a good correlation of microalbuminuria with renal dysfunction and pathohistological changes. Thus, more sensitive and specific biomarkers are needed to improve the diagnostic capability of identifying patients at high risk. The factors involved in renal tubulo-interstitial damage, the production and degradation of extracellular matrix, microinflammation, etc., are investigated as candidate molecules. Despite numerous efforts so far, the assessment of these biomarkers is still a subject of ongoing investigations. Recently, a variety of omics and quantitative techniques in systems biology are rapidly emerging in the field of biomarker discovery, including proteomics, transcriptomics, and metabolomics, and they have been applied to search for novel putative biomarkers of diabetic nephropathy. Novel biomarkers or their combination with microalbuminuria provide a better diagnostic accuracy than microalbuminuria alone, and may be useful for establishing personal medicine. Furthermore, the identification of novel biomarkers may provide insight into the mechanisms underlying diabetic nephropathy.