Overexpression of Circulating Soluble Nogo-B Improves Diabetic Kidney Disease by Protecting the Vasculature
Abstract
Damage to the vasculature is the primary mechanism driving chronic diabetic microvascular complications such as diabetic nephropathy, which manifests as albuminuria. Therefore, treatments that protect the diabetic vasculature have significant therapeutic potential. Soluble neurite outgrowth inhibitor-B (sNogo-B) is a circulating N-terminus isoform of full-length Nogo-B, which plays a key role in vascular remodeling following injury. However, there is currently no information on the role of sNogo-B in the context of diabetic nephropathy. We demonstrate that overexpression of sNogo-B in the circulation ameliorates diabetic kidney disease by reducing albuminuria, hyperfiltration, and abnormal angiogenesis and protecting glomerular capillary structure. Systemic sNogo-B overexpression in diabetic mice also associates with dampening vascular endothelial growth factor-A signaling and reducing endothelial nitric oxide synthase, AKT, and GSK3β phosphorylation. Furthermore, sNogo-B prevented the impairment of tube formation, which occurred when human endothelial cells were exposed to sera from patients with diabetic kidney disease. Collectively, these studies provide the first evidence that sNogo-B protects the vasculature in diabetes and may represent a novel therapeutic target for diabetic vascular complications.
Footnotes
This article contains Supplementary Data online at http://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.2337/db19-0157/-/DC1.
J.K. is currently affiliated with the Department of Nephrology, The Fifth Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangdong, People’s Republic of China.
- Received February 15, 2019.
- Accepted June 10, 2019.
- © 2019 by the American Diabetes Association.
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