title: The story of Notch and chronic kidney disease.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The Notch pathway is an evolutionary conserved cell-cell communication mechanism that plays a key role in kidney development. Here, we will discuss a number of recently published papers describing the role of Notch signaling in kidney development, homeostasis, injury and repair.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Recent gene expression studies identified regulation of the Notch pathway in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). Mechanistic experiments performed using transgenic and knock-out mouse models indicate that Notch plays an important functional role in the development of proteinuria and renal fibrosis. Inhibition of the Notch pathway ameliorated diabetic kidney disease, nephrotic syndrome and fibrosis in different rodent models.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  An increasing amount of evidence suggests that Notch plays a role in CKD development. Understanding the role of Notch signaling in the kidney can aid in the development of new therapeutics for CKD.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, Division of Nephrology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY 10461, USA.
authors.forename: Shuchita
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sharma
authors.forename: Yasemin
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sirin
authors.forename: Katalin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Susztak
mesh_terms: D058186:Acute Kidney Injury / Q000209:etiology; D002908:Chronic Disease; D005355:Fibrosis; D006801:Humans; D007668:Kidney / Q000196:embryology / Q000473:pathology; D007674:Kidney Diseases / Q000209:etiology*; D050199:Podocytes / Q000502:physiology; D051880:Receptors, Notch / Q000502:physiology*; D015398:Signal Transduction
chemical_list: D051880:Receptors, Notch