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suPAR is the circulating factor in some but not all FSGS

Nature Reviews Nephrology volume 10, page 610 (2014)Cite this article

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With the whole world focused on—one might say obsessed with—the World Cup, we find ourselves thinking about the role of referees in sport and medicine. The general consensus is that they are needed to decide whether a goal has been scored or whether a paper is valid. We would hope that most of the time they are not needed to decide whether a ball has cleared the goal line or whether a scientific finding is meaningful. Instead, we propose that referees are required to keep the ball in play or research moving forward rather than to adjudicate on what has happened.

These musings seem especially germane to comments made by Jeroen Deegens and Jack Wetzels regarding a preclinical study performed by Cathelin et al.1 that assessed the effect of soluble urokinase plasminogen activator receptor (suPAR) injection on proteinuria and glomerular structure (The search goes on: suPAR is not the elusive FSGS factor. Nat. Rev. Nephrol. 10, 431–432; 2014).2 Jochen Reiser has already published a comprehensive analysis of this study and the limitations inherent in extrapolating data from animal studies to human disease.3 Moreover, we do not want to comment again on the impact of isoforms of suPAR that are not detected using the currently available ELISA kits.4 Wetzels and his colleagues are conducting important studies into the role of suPAR in focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS)5 and their work is essential to understand if and how suPAR acts in this disease. However, we advise that definitive conclusions about the role of suPAR in FSGS and other glomerular diseases must be based on all of the published evidence and should not be made prematurely.

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References

  1. Cathelin, D. et al. Administration of recombinant soluble urokinase receptor per se is not sufficient to induce podocyte alterations and proteinuria in mice. J. Am. Soc. Nephrol. 25, 1662–1668 (2014).

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Acknowledgements

J.R.'s work is supported by R01 grants DK089394, DK073495, and DK101350. H.T.'s work is supported in part by RO1 grant DK100307.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medicine, Rush University Medical Center, 1735 West Harrison Street, Cohn Building, Suite 724, Chicago, 60612, IL, USA

    Howard Trachtman

  2. NYU Langone Medical Center, CTSI, 227 East 30th Street, Room 3110, New York, 10016, NY, USA

    Jochen Reiser

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  1. Howard Trachtman
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  2. Jochen Reiser
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Correspondence to Howard Trachtman.

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H.T. declares no competing interests. J.R. is an inventor on pending and issued patents on suPAR and its modification in renal disease.

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Trachtman, H., Reiser, J. suPAR is the circulating factor in some but not all FSGS. Nat Rev Nephrol 10, 610 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrneph.2014.113-c1

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