Research Awards Recipients

Lay Summary

Patients with kidney disease have changes in a gene called SHROOM3. Through basic science studies, our work was the first to validate that SHROOM3 as playing important functions in the kidney and when these functions are disrupted this leads to kidney disease. We now wish to build on these exciting studies. To that end we have exciting new data that shows the kidney disease could be due to alterations during early development of the kidney. Therefore, in this proposal we will investigate Shroom3 functions in the earliest stages of kidney development to determine how the changes during kidney development could lead to disease. It is our hypothesis that disruptions in the Shroom3 gene lead to disruptions in Shroom3 function causing structural and functional abnormalities that contribute to kidney disease. Specifically, we will determine how Shroom3 effects the development of the kidney and examine how Shroom3 helps in the cells ability to communicate. We will also utilize human biobanks to further understand the changes in the Shroom3 gene as a contributor to kidney disease. To generate new treatments for kidney disease we must first understand the molecules and mechanisms of how and where they work. These studies will be the first to examine how changes in Shroom3 expression or function regulate the earliest stages of kidney formation and will yield vital new insights into how kidney cells form, work, and heal.