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. 2023 Feb 10;17(1):sfad027.
doi: 10.1093/ckj/sfad027. eCollection 2024 Jan.

Urinary matrix metalloproteinase-7 is a sensitive biomarker to evaluate renal tubular injury in patients with minimal change disease and focal segmental glomerulosclerosis

Dan-Yang Yin  1 , Gai-Ling Hou  1 , Xiao-Qing Yang  2 , Liang-Liang Bi  2 , Xiao-Feng Mei  2 , Meng-Ke Bai  2 , Li Zhou  3 , Shan Zhu  4 , Yan-Jie Huang  1   2
Affiliations

Urinary matrix metalloproteinase-7 is a sensitive biomarker to evaluate renal tubular injury in patients with minimal change disease and focal segmental glomerulosclerosis

Dan-Yang Yin et al. Clin Kidney J. .

Abstract

Objective: To explore the advantages of urinary matrix metalloproteinase-7 (MMP-7) in evaluating renal tubular injury in minimal change disease (MCD) and focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) patients compared with urinary cystatin C (CysC) and retinol-binding protein (RBP).

Methods: Serum and urine samples were collected from 20 healthy volunteers, and 40 MCD and 20 FSGS patients. Serum and urinary MMP-7 levels were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Urinary total protein, CysC and RBP levels were measured by automatic specific protein analyzer and compared with urinary creatinine level for calibration. The renal tissue serial sections were stained by MMP-7 immunohistochemistry and periodic acid-Schiff.

Results: Under light microscopy, MMP-7 granular weak positive expression was showed sporadically in the cytoplasm of a few renal tubular epithelial cells without obvious morphological changes in MCD patients, and MMP-7-positive expression was observed in the cytoplasm of some renal tubular epithelial cells in FSGS patients. There was no significant difference in serum MMP-7 level among the three groups. Compared with the control group, the urinary MMP-7 level in MCD patients was higher, but urinary CysC and RBP levels were not increased significantly. Compared with the control group and MCD patients, urinary MMP-7, CysC and RBP levels in FSGS patients were upregulated significantly.

Conclusions: Urinary MMP-7 could not only evaluate the mild renal tubular epithelial cells injury in MCD patients with massive proteinuria, but also evaluate the continuous renal tubular epithelial cells injury in FSGS patients.

Keywords: cystatin C; focal segmental glomerulosclerosis; matrix metalloproteinase-7; minimal change disease; renal tubular injury.

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Conflict of interest statement

No conflicts of interest (financial or otherwise) are declared by the authors.

Figures

Graphical Abstract
Graphical Abstract
Figure 1:
Figure 1:
Expression of MMP-7 in renal tubules of patients with MCD and FSGS. Control, nontumor kidney tissues from the patients who had renal cell carcinoma used as normal controls. Blue arrows indicated swollen tubular epithelial cells. Black arrows indicated MMP-7-positive expression. Magnification, ×400; Scale bars, 100 μm.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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