Big Data and Glomerular Disease: Uncovering Common Outcomes of Rare Disease

Abstract

What is most intriguing about the result, however, is that glomeruli with mild to moderate plexus defects were not observed. Although a more in-depth quantitative assessment of capillary branch number and length is warranted, if glomeruli are truly normal, it suggests there is a tremendous capacity for vascular plasticity in developing glomeruli. How and when this occurs (and when it is no longer possible) would be fascinating questions for future studies, and they are also important from a therapeutic standpoint. For example, in early stages of diabetic nephropathy, mildly injured glomeruli have hyperplasia and hypertrophy of GECs, whereas more severely injured glomeruli have loss of capillaries. 12 Proangiogenic factors such as Slit2 are potential targets that could be modulated in the future to treat kidney disease.