Francis crick institute, Research institute in London, England

Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute have found out how microscopic structures called lipid droplets may help to prevent a high-fat diet causing kidney damage. The work in fruit flies, published in PLoS Biology opens up a new research avenue for developing better treatments for chronic kidney disease.Eating foods high in fats can cause inflammation and metabolic stress in the kidneys, leading to chronic disease, which in severe cases requires dialysis or a transplant. And with obesity on the rise globally, it's a growing problem- around 10 per cent of people in the UK are living with chronic kidney disease.Scientists at the Crick have been studying a common characteristic of the disease, the appearance of lipid droplets inside kidney cells, to solve a long-standing mystery of whether this protects or harms kidney function.Working with electron microscopy experts at the Crick, the team used the sophisticated genetic methods available in the fruit fly (Drosophila) to show that lipid droplets protect the renal system against damage from excess dietary fats.When fed a high-fat diet, lipid droplets accumulate inside nephrocytes, the flies' equivalent of human kidney cells called podocytes. Here, the droplets act as a 'safe haven' for storing excess fats away from the rest of the cell.An enzyme called ATGL sits on the surface of lipid droplets and helps to dispose of the stored fats in a safe way. ATGL does this by feeding the fats in a digestible form to nearby mitochondria, where they can be broken down into less toxic molecules.Lipid droplets are essential for the protective process as when the scientists used genetic methods to prevent their formation, the fats left free inside the nephrocytes caused substantial damage and impaired kidney function.Alex Gould, head of the Physiology and Metabolism Laboratory at the Crick and lead researcher of the study says: "It has been known for many years that lipid droplets pop up in a wide range of diseases, all the way from diabetes to brain cancer. What's been far less clear is whether they are making things better or worse.""It's exciting to find that lipid droplets are an essential part of the kidney's fight back against fat overload. These fascinating structures are turning out to be so much more than tiny balls of fat, and we now want to find out whether their protective role in the kidney also applies to other disease contexts."The scientists also found that boosting the expression of the ATGL enzyme in fruit flies was able to repair most of the damage caused by a high-fat diet, restoring normal function to the kidney cells.Fruit flies are a useful model for understanding the biology of kidney disease in humans because there are important similarities in the renal systems of both species, including the presence of the ATGL enzyme.Ola Lubojemska, who carried out much of this work in the Physiology and Metabolism Laboratory at the Crick, explains: "These findings are at an early stage but open up a new direction for clinical research into chronic kidney disease."Ola further gave an example saying, "It may be possible to develop a drug that boosts the ATGL enzyme in renal patients. This would allow excess dietary fats to be more efficiently detoxified by kidney cells, thus improving kidney function."( With inputs from ANI )Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor

Francis Crick InstituteFOLLOW

Francis crick institute, Latest News

England men's cricket team coach Chris Silverwood on Wednesday called up Kent's wicketkeeper-batsman Sam Billings and Nottinghamshire's top-order batsman Haseeb Hameed for the upcoming Test series against New Zealand. ...

England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) on Wednesday confirmed that pacer Jofra Archer had surgery to address his long-standing elbow issues on May 21. ...

Nagpur, May 24 Junior India coach Kiran Makode said a coach should have through knowledge and he or she ... ...

On a day when it came to the fore that the Indian women's team hasn't yet received the prize money from BCCI after finishing runners-up in the 2020 ICC T20 World Cup, former England cricketer Isa Guha spoke about the disparities in men's and women's ...

American singer-songwriter Ariana Grande remembered the 22 people killed and over 500 injured at her 2017 concert in Manchester, England. ...

During a recent study, researchers from the Francis Crick Institute discovered how microscopic structures called lipid droplets may help to prevent a high-fat diet causing damage to the kidneys. ...

England pacer Jofra Archer has been reviewed by a medical consultant in respect of his right elbow soreness and the fast bowler will now undergo surgery on Friday. ...

Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute have found out how microscopic structures called lipid droplets may help to prevent a high-fat diet causing kidney damage. The work in fruit flies, published in PLoS Biology opens up a new research avenue fo ...