Molecular Determinants of Kidney Podocyte Architecture in Health, Injury, and Recovery

Modified Project Summary/Abstract Section The podocytopathies are a group of glomerular diseases that affect the kidney’s ability to filter the blood and often lead to kidney failure. Healthy podocytes cover the glomerular capillaries with thousands of extensions called foot processes that interdigitate with one another and maintain their elaborate cell shape by tightly regulating their actin cytoskeleton. Podocytes respond to insults in a typical fashion by undergoing foot process effacement, a dramatic shift in podocyte morphology and the disappearance of the intricate foot processes, which often associates with the “actin mat”, an actin condensation at the bottom of the effaced areas. We recently used super-resolution imaging to study the podocyte actin cytoskeleton in 3D in both healthy and diseased conditions. We showed that healthy podocyte foot processes contain non-contractile actin cables, while contractile cables are maintained high in the cell bodies. In contrast, injured podocytes appear to have contractile actin cables in effacement areas juxtaposed to the glomerular basement membrane (GBM), indicating a shift in the spatial distribution of actin cables after injury. The overall goal of this proposal is to define the molecular mechanisms that regulate the various types of actin cables in podocytes and the nature of the changes that cause the contractile actin cables in the cell body to shift towards the effaced areas adjacent to the GBM after injury. In Aim 1, we will investigate the roles of the two isoactins, beta and gamma actin, in podocyte pathobiology. Podocytes express high levels of these almost-identical evolutionally-conserved isoactins. While beta actin in non-muscle cells is considered the main isoactin, as evident from the embryonic lethality when inactivated, the role of gamma actin is still elusive. we will use various kidney disease mouse models, including the gamma-actin knockout mouse, to answer some fundamental questions about the role of the two isoactins in podocyte biology. Furthermore, we will utilize a novel technique to study primary podocytes as they spread out of isolated kidney glomeruli onto a substrate-micropatterned hydrogel. This approach will allow us to study the dynamic changes in the actin cytoskeleton in injured podocytes and will shed more light on the fate of the actin mats in effaced podocytes. It will help us identifying the role of Rho small GTPases and its downstream effectors, formins, in the actin mat formation. In Aim 2, we will study the tropomyosin isoform composition in podocytes and their roles in specifying the spatial distribution of different types of actin cables in the kidney podocytes. We hypothesize that changes in tropomyosin composition in injured podocytes causes the ectopic appearance of contractile actin cables in the effaced areas, and this, in turn, is regulated by different formins. Understanding how tropomyosins regulate the various types of actin cables could provide the missing link to podocyte foot process effacement. Our goal is to expand our understanding of the molecular mechanisms that regulate the composition and dynamics of the actin cytoskeleton, a step that will help us in designing novel therapeutic approaches to directly impact podocyte foot process architecture and help cure kidney glomerular diseases.