Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Research Highlight
  • Published:

Chronic kidney disease

Mechanisms of APOL1-associated renal disease

Nature Reviews Nephrology volume 13, page 62 (2017)Cite this article

Subjects

Access through your institution
Buy or subscribe

Karl Skorecki and colleagues showed that expression of APOL1-G1 or G2 risk variants in Drosophila nephrocytes — which are homologous to human podocytes — resulted in the accumulation of an endocytic tracer, followed by nephrocyte loss in older flies. Further investigations in Saccharomyces cerevisiae provided evidence that APOL1 risk alleles impair endosomal trafficking and vacuole acidification.

Similarly, Zhe Han and colleagues found that nephrocyte-specific expression of APOL1 or APOL1-G1 in Drosophila resulted in increased endocytic activity and reduced organelle acidification, followed by a loss of function, increase in size and premature death of nephrocytes as the flies aged. The phenotype was most severe in flies that expressed APOL1-G1 and was similar to that of cultured mammalian podocytes that overexpress this risk allele.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Access through your institution

Buy this article

  • Purchase on SpringerLink
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

  1. Fu, Y. et al. APOL1-G1 in nephrocytes induces hypertrophy and accelerates cell death. J. Am. Soc. Nephrol. http://dx.doi.org/10.1681/ASN.2016050550 (2016)

  2. Kruzel-Davila, E. et al. APOL1-mediated cell injury involves disruption of conserved trafficking processes. J. Am. Soc. Nephrol. http://dx.doi.org/10.1681/ASN.2016050546 (2016)

Download references

Authors
  1. Ellen F. Carney
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Carney, E. Mechanisms of APOL1-associated renal disease. Nat Rev Nephrol 13, 62 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrneph.2016.175

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrneph.2016.175

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing