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| Professor Michael Hickey |
Monash
researchers have solved a mystery—revealing how certain immune cells work
together to instigate autoimmune kidney disease.
The
study, led by Professor Michael Hickey and Professor Richard Kitching from
Monash University’s Centre for Inflammatory Diseases, was published in Nature
Communications last week.
“We've
known for some time that in glomerulonephritis, an immune disease of the
kidney, rogue immune cells damage the kidney via a misdirected inflammatory
attack,” Professor Hickey said.
“However
we did not understand the processes that cause these rogue immune cells to
become switched on and start causing damage in the delicate blood vessels of the
small filters of the kidney (known as glomeruli).”
Professor
Hickey said that special cells called monocytes continuously patrol the
glomeruli by crawling within its blood vessels.
“We
know that monocytes are very good at ‘picking up and removing rubbish’ and being
on the lookout for signs of infection and tissue injury, and that this is usually
quite beneficial,” Professor Hickey said.
“However
in autoimmunity, some immune cells in the circulation are highly reactive to
molecules picked up in the kidney. Using advanced microscopes, we were able to show
that under these circumstances, patrolling monocytes can display these
molecules to the reactive immune cells in the bloodstream, resulting in the
rogue cells remaining in the kidney and turning on an unnecessary and damaging
inflammatory attack. This autoimmune damage to the kidney can severely impact
on the normal function of the kidney, particularly if left untreated.”
“Mercifully this is not a very common process;
as a number of dominoes have to fall for glomerulonephritis to occur, including
development of the rogue immune cells” Professor Hickey said.
Co-author
and Monash Health nephrologist Professor Kitching said this damage occurs while
the cells are moving around in the kidney blood vessels themselves.
“Significantly,
this process, known as intravascular antigen recognition, has never been
described before for the key helper T cells that direct and control the immune
response,” Professor Kitching said.
Professor
Kitching said the discovery will serve as a platform for further investigations
of these processes, with the ultimate aim of discovering more specific treatments
for patients with kidney disease.
