Led by scientists at Duke-NUS Medical School and the National Heart Centre Singapore, researchers in Singapore and Germany have found that renal tubular cells, which line the tiny tubes inside kidneys, release a scar-regulating protein called interleukin-11 (IL-11) in response to kidney damage. This leads to increased expression of a gene that arrests cellular growth and promotes kidney dysfunction. In a preclinical model of human diabetic kidney disease, the scientists showed that turning off this process by administering an antibody that binds to IL-11 led to proliferation of the kidney tubule cells and reversal of fibrosis and inflammation, enabling damaged kidney cells to regenerate and restoring impaired kidney function.

Read more about the study at https://www.duke-nus.edu.sg/allnews/d...

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