In vivo measurement of kidney glomerular number and size in healthy and Os/+ mice using MRI.

In vivo measurement of kidney glomerular number and size in healthy and Os/+ mice using MRI. Am J Physiol Renal Physiol. 2019 Jul 24;: Authors: Baldelomar EJ, Charlton JR, deRonde KA, Bennett KM Abstract The development of chronic kidney disease (CKD) is associated with the loss of functional nephrons. However, there are no methods to directly measure nephron number in living subjects. Thus, there are no methods to track the early stages of progressive CKD prior to changes in total renal function. In this work, we use cationic ferritin enhanced-magnetic resonance imaging (CFE-MRI) to enable measurements of glomerular number (Nglom) and apparent glomerular volume (aVglom) in vivo in healthy wild type (WT, n=4) and oligosyndactylism (Os/+, n=4) mice, a model of congenital renal hypoplasia leading to nephron reduction. We validate in vivo measurements of Nglom and aVglom by high resolution ex vivo MRI. CFE-MRI measured a mean Nglom of 12,220±2,028 and 6,848±1,676 (mean±SD) for WT and Os/+ mouse kidneys in vivo, respectively. Nglom measured in all mice in vivo using CFE-MRI varied by an average 15% from Nglom measured ex vivo in the same kidney (α=0.05, p=0.67). To confirm that CFE-MRI can also be used to track nephron endowment longitudinally, a WT mouse was imaged three times by CFE-MRI over two weeks. Values of Nglom measured in vivo in the same kidney varied within ~3%. Values of aVglom calculated from CFE-MRI in vivo were signif...
Source: Am J Physiol Renal P... - Category: Urology & Nephrology Authors: Tags: Am J Physiol Renal Physiol Source Type: research