Urinary Excretion of Kidney Aquaporins as Possible Diagnostic Biomarker of Diabetic Nephropathy

Figure 3

AQP2 plasma membrane localization increases in DN patients and with the clinical severity of DN. Human kidney biopsies from control kidney (CTR), DN, and NDN patients were subjected to immunofluorescence analysis of AQP2 subcellular localization. AQP2 immunostaining, shown in red, was visualized in the apical confocal plan. Confocal pictures are representative of AQP2 staining in the cortical collecting duct of normal kidney (CTR), kidneys of patients with class II (DN II), class III (DN III), and class IV (DN IV) DN, and kidneys of NDN patients. is a patient with membranous nephropathy and angiosclerosis, is a patient with chronic interstitial nephritis, and is a patient with endocapillary/extracapillary glomerulonephritis. Similar results were obtained in three patients per each group.