Uninephrectomy reducecs apoptotic cell death and enhances renal tubular cell regeneration in ischemic acute renal failure in rats. Nakajima, Toshiaki, Takehiko Miyaji, Akihiko Kato, Naoki Ikegaya, Tatsuo Yamamoto, and Akira Hishida. Department of medicine, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine[umlaut]uAHanda-cho, Hamamatsu, 431-31, Japan
APStracts 3:0121F, 1996.
Contralateral uninephrectomy attenuates unilateral ischemic renal injury functionally and morphologically. In this study we investigated the effects of uninephrectomy on apoptotic renal cell death and tubular regeneration in ischemic acute renal failure in rats. Unilateral ischemic injury was provoked by a 60-minute left renal artery occlusion in right nephrectomized(Nx) and sham -nephrectomized(sham-Nx) rats. Uninephrectomy attenuated tubular damage 48 hr following the renal ischemia. Apoptotic cells were found in renal tissue as early as 3 hr after reperfusion and increased in number by 12 hr. The "ladder" pattern of DNA fragments on agarose gel electrophoresis was also apparent in ischemic kidney. Uninephrectomy reduced apoptotic cells and DNA fragmentation. The expression of proliferating cell nuclear antigen(PCNA) could be seen 24 hr after reperfusion and progressively increased thereafter. PCNA expression in ischemic kidney was greater in Nx than sham-Nx rats at 24 hr after renal reperfusion. These data suggest that uninephrectomy reduces apoptotic cells and DNA fragmentation and enhances PCNA expression. The reduced apoptotic cell death and enhanced cell regeneration may be importantly involved in the uninephrectomy -induced attenuation of ischemic acute renal failure in rats.

Received 6 February 1996; accepted in final form 28 June 1996.
APS Manuscript Number F39-6.
Article publication pending Am. J. Physiol. (Renal Fluid Electrolyte
Physiology).
ISSN 1080-4757 Copyright 1996 The American Physiological Society.
Published in APStracts on 25 July 1996