Background:
We previously reported that various pathological conditions including high blood pressure increase p21 expression in the kidney; however, the functional importance of renal p21 up-regulation has not been clarified yet. In the present study, we evaluated the role of p21 in acute kidney injury, a life-threatening disease that can occur independently of the pathological background of patients (whether renal p21 is up-regulated or not).
Methods and Results:
The mice lacking functional p21 (p21-KO, n=9) and its wild-type control (WT, n=7) underwent a 45-min renal ischemia followed by a 24-h reperfusion (I/R). I/R significantly increased both mRNA expression and nuclear immunoreactivity of p21 in the kidney of WT compared with sham surgery (p21/β-actin, 1.28±0.23 vs. 0.57±0.15, respectively, P<0.05). I/R injury analyzed by blood urea nitrogen (BUN) and kidney histological changes were exacerbated in p21-KO mice (BUN: WT; 103.8±4.6 mg/dL, p21-KO; 127.7±5.2 mg/dL, P<0.05). The results suggest that p21 plays a protective role against I/R injury. Therefore, we next examined whether p21 is also associated with the protective effect of ischemic preconditioning (IPC), which is an established method of attenuating the I/R injury. IPC (4 sets of a 5-min ischemia and a 5-min reperfusion) clearly improved the I/R injury in WT (BUN: sham; 87.7±22.0 mg/dL, IPC; 39.0±2.3 mg/dL, n=3 and n=7, respectively, P<0.05), whereas there was no difference in the I/R injury in p21-KO mice (BUN: sham; 136.5±13.6 mg/dL, IPC; 127.9±6.9 mg/dL, n=5 and n=8, respectively). IPC increased the renal expression of p21 prior to I/R compared with sham surgery (p21/β-actin: 1.07±0.08 vs. 0.26±0.05 fold, respectively, P<0.05).
Conclusion:
Renal p21 plays a protective role against I/R injury and is necessary for the beneficial effect of renal IPC.
Protective role of poplar propolis against alcohol-induced biochemical and histological changes in liver and testes tissues of rats
