BioProject

Autosomal Dominant Polycystic Kidney Disease (ADPKD; MIM ID’s 173900, 601313, 613095) leads to end stage kidney disease, caused by mutations in PKD1 or PKD2. Inactivation of Pkd1 before or after P13 in mice results in distinct early- or late-onset disease. Using a mouse model of ADPKD carrying floxed Pkd1 alleles disrupted using a tamoxifen-inducible Cre recombinase, transcriptomics and metabolomics were applied to follow disease progression in animals induced before P10. Network analysis suggests that Pkd1-cystogenesis does not cause developmental arrest and occurs in the context of gene networks similar to those that regulate/maintain normal kidney morphology/function. These analyses also predict metabolic pathways, notably those controlled by HNF4α, are key elements in postnatal kidney maturation and early steps of cyst formation. To test this hypothesis, metabolic networks were altered by inactivating Hnf4a and Pkd1. The Pkd1/Hnf4a double knock-out have significantly more cystic kidneys thus indicating that modulating metabolic pathways might be an effective therapeutic approach. Overall design: We crossed fifth-generation C57/BL6 Pkd1cond mice to fifth-generation C57/BL6 tamoxifen-Cre (B6.Cg-Tg(Cre/Esr1)5Amc/J mice (stock 004682), Jackson Laboratories) and C57/BL6 congenic B6.129S4-Gt(ROSA)26Sortm1Sor/J (stock 003474, Jackson Laboratories) to produce Pkd1 conditional mice with TamCre (mutant) or without TamCre (control). We induced Cre recombinase activity in mice < 10 days of age by intraperitoneally injecting nursing mothers with tamoxifen (10 mg/40 g) , and harvested kidney samples of control and mutant (34 and 36 animals, respectively) between the ages of 11 and 24 days. Postprocessed files (expression p value<0.05; quantile normalized; merged and corrected for batch-effect using COMBAT) linked below as supplementary files.