The mesangial cell occupies a central position in the renal glomerulus. It has characteristics of a modified smooth muscle cell, but is also capable of a number of other functions. Among these are generation of prostaglandins (PGs) and mediators of inflammation; production and breakdown of basement membrane and other biomatrix material; synthesis of cytokines; and uptake of macromolecules, incl...

BACKGROUND Cholesterol feeding has been shown to accelerate the development of glomerulosclerosis in many experimental renal diseases, possibly by promoting the infiltration of macrophages into the glomerulus. METHODS In order to assess whether hyperlipidaemia could directly modulate macrophage function to promote glomerulosclerosis, confluent quiescent mesangial cells were exposed to residen...

BACKGROUND To investigate the role of mononuclear cells and their products on rat mesangial cell proliferation, we evaluated the effect of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) culture supernatant of patients with IgA nephropathy on rat mesangial cells 3[H]-thymidine uptake, and measured the concentration of cytokines in the supernatant to find out which cytokine in PBMC culture supernatant...

Advanced glycation end-products (AGEs)-induced mesangial cell death is one of major causes of glomerulus dysfunction in diabetic nephropathy. Both endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress and autophagy are adaptive responses in cells under environmental stress and participate in the renal diseases. The role of ER stress and autophagy in AGEs-induced mesangial cell death is still unclear. Here, we inve...

The glomerular mesangial cell may have several important beneficial functions in the normal glomerulus. These include the production of growth factors to allow normal cell turnover, the provision of structural support for the capillaries via the production of mesangial matrix, and the modulation of glomerular hemodynamics via their contractile properties. However, in various types of glomerular...

The microfibrillar protein fibrillin-1 is present in many organs, including the vasculature, eye, and dermis, and is thought to convey structural anchorage and elastic strength. Fibrillin-1 is also a component of the mesangial matrix. To assess the functional relevance of fibrillin-1 for cell-matrix interactions in the glomerulus, we studied the attachment, spreading, migration and proliferatio...

Mesangial cell proliferation is a significant event in the development of progressive glomerular injuries. However, the issue of how cell proliferation is involved in the development of glomerulosclerosis is unclear. Recently, we showed that the overexpression of type IV collagen (Col IV), a major component of mesangial extracellular matrix, is transcriptionally regulated by Smad1 in diabetic g...

PKCβII controls the pathologic features of diabetic nephropathy, including glomerular mesangial cell hypertrophy. PKCβII contains the COOH-terminal hydrophobic motif site Ser-660. Whether this hydrophobic motif phosphorylation contributes to high glucose-induced mesangial cell hypertrophy has not been determined. Here we show that, in mesangial cells, high glucose increased phosphorylation of P...

Mesangial cell proliferation and matrix accumulation are considered to contribute to the development of glomerulosclerosis. To investigate the pathological role played by mesangial cell damage in progressive renal disease appropriate progressive models initiated by a mesangial cell injury should be developed. Monoclonal antibody (mAb) 1-22-3 (IgG3) recognizes a critical epitope of the Thy-1.1 m...

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) initiate multiple pathological and physiological cellular responses, including tyrosine phosphorylation of proteins. In this study, we investigated the effects of ROS on cell-extracellular matrix interactions utilizing the floating three-dimensional collagen gel assay. Exposure of mesangial cells grown in three-dimensional culture to H2O2, 3-amino-1,2,4-triazole (a...