ABSTRACT
Objective To investigate the expression of ROBO4/ARF6 and its correlation to glomerular endothelial cells (MGECs) permeability at each pathological stage of diabetic kidney disease (DKD). Methods Thirty patients with DKD were enrolled (patient group), and their renal tissues obtained by biopsy were divided into incipient, manifest and advanced stages (10 each) with Tervaert pathological staging, and confirmed normal renal tissues adjacent to the renal angiomyolipoma were assigned as control group. Immunohistochemistry method of MaxVision was used to detect the expression of ROBO4/ARF6 in the specimens, and then the correlation of the expression with the clinicopathological parameters (patients' HbA1c, albuminuria, serum creatinine, eGFR) were determined using statistical software SPSS 21.0. Results ROBO4 was abundantly but ARF6 rarely expressed in normal MGECs. In DKD patients, ROBO4 was mainly expressed in MGECs, while ARF6 was expressed in both MGECs and renal tubular epithelial cells. Compared with the control group, the positive intensity of ROBO4 in patient group decreased significantly (P0.05), but was positively correlated with 24h-urinary albumin (r=0.603, P<0.01) and HbA1c (r=0.582, P<0.01). Conclusion The low expression of ROBO4 and high expression of ARF6 in MGECs of DKD patients suggest that ROBO4/ARF6 signaling pathway may participate in the DKD glomerular endothelial and vascular pathological injury and urinary protein increase.