Regional kidney function

Visualization of Residual Contrast Medium on Delayed CT in Relation to the Interval from the Administration of Contrast Medium (Assessment of Regional Kidney Function)... 

This patient developed exercise-induced acute renal failure (ALPE) after participating in a 200-m race in an athletics meeting on a Health-Sports Day. When delayed CT showed patchy contrast enhancement, dynamic CT was performed in order to evaluate regional kidney function. The details are given in Chap. 2, Sect. 2. 

Using the toxicogenomic techniques described, some significant data have been obtained but to determine the functional significance of these data, additional studies need to be done. Use of these new technologies and their specificity and sensitivity to assess nephrotoxicity remains controversial, but in the future they may allow the identification of useful biomarkers that would be predictive of future responses to toxicant insults and the region of the kidney affected. Identification of specific biomarkers associated with the future development of loss of kidney function, fibrosis, or recovery would be useful in the rapid evaluation of potentially nephrotoxic agents. 

There are two adrenal glands, one located on top of each kidney. These glands are composed of two distinct functional regions ... 

The kidneys lie outside the peritoneal cavity in the posterior abdominal wall, one on each side of the vertebral column, slightly above the waistline. In the adult human, each kidney is approximately 11 cm long, 6 cm wide, and 3 cm thick. These organs are divided into two regions the inner renal medulla and the outer renal cortex. The functional unit of the kidney is the nephron (see Figure 19.1 and Figure 19.2). Approximately 1 million nephrons are in each kidney. The nephron has two components ... 

Wang H, Kekuda R, Conway SJ et al. Stmcture, function, and regional distribution of the organic cation transporter OCT3 in the kidney. Am J Physiol Renal Physiol 2000 279(3) F449-F458. 

It is contended that the renal slice technique measures primarily basolateral uptake of substrates or nephrotoxins, based on histological evidence of collapsed tubular lumens. This results in the inaccessibility of brush-border surfaces for reabsorptive transport (Burg and Orloff, 1969 Cohen and Kamm, 1976). This observation limits the ability of this model to accurately reflect reactions to nephrotoxins that occur as the result of brush-border accumulation of an injurious agent. Ultrastructurally, a number of alterations, particularly in the plasma membrane and mitochondrial compartments, have been shown to occur over a 2-h incubation period (Martel-Pelletier et al., 1977). This deterioration in morphology is very likely a consequence of the insufficient diffusion of oxygen, metabolic substrates, and waste products in the innermost regions of the kidney slice (Cohen and Kamm, 1976). Such factors also limit the use of slices in studying renal metabolism and transport functions. 

Fig. 3. Predicted alternative splicing in HPS (Hermansky-Pudlak Syndrome). The HPS polypeptide is a novel transmembrane protein that is likely to be a component of multiple cytoplasmic organelles and is apparently crucial for their normal development and function. We demonstrated an putative alternate transcript of the HPS gene. By RT-PCR, two transcripts were found in normal human brain, kidney, liver, lung, pancreas, and placenta. The short transcript (AA700609, length 302 bp) shows a deletion of 521 bp in the 3 UTR region of the HPS gene.

The kidneys - a pair of organs in the lower back region, just below the ribs - are part of the urinary system, the main function of which... 

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