Renal failure

What role do a common receptor and diet play in chronic inflammation? That is the question that the Experimental and Clinical Research Center (ECRC) and other partners will pursue over the next three years in a consortium project funded by the BMBF.

There is no treatment for infection with the dangerous hantavirus. Scientists at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) have now identified the three-dimensional structure of a hantavirus protein that is essential for replication of the virus. They have published their findings in the journal Cell Reports, providing a blueprint for the design of antiviral drugs.

Every year acute renal failure affects over 13 million people and leads to 1.7 million deaths across the globe.It often develops when an insufficient supply of oxygen reaches the kidneys, a condition called ischemia. Working with their colleagues from the MDC, the Charité and FMP in Berlin and Hannover Medical School, Dr Lajos Markó and Emilia Vigolo have traced one of the causes of ischemia-related renal failure to a signaling molecule called NF-κB and a specific type of tissue: tubular epithelial cells. Suppressing NF-κB signaling in these renal cells almost entirely eliminates the fatal tissue damage and inflammatory responses that accompany the disease.