Pioglitazone Attenuates Cystic Burden in the PCK Rodent Model of Polycystic Kidney Disease

Table 1

Effect of pioglitazone (20 mg/kg body weight) on fibrocystic disease in the PCK rat model.

7-week feeding protocol	Female animals				Male animals
	Control 𝑛=8	Pioglitazone 𝑛=6	𝑃-value and significance		Control 𝑛=5	Pioglitazone 𝑛=8	𝑃-value and significance
Body weight (gr)	239±9.48	224±5.04	.21	NS	347±9.50	328±9.45	.20	NS
Kidney weight (gr)	3.74±0.22	3.27±0.18	.14	NS	6.64±0.37	5.42±0.31	.03	S
KW% BW	1.56±0.04	1.46±0.06	.18	NS	1.91±0.08	1.65±0.07	.03	S
Renal cyst vol (ml)	0.39±0.05	0.31±0.09	.06	NS	0.72±0.06	0.31±0.04	.04	S
Liver weight (gr)	13.4±0.54	11.3±0.43	.01	S	16.80±0.77	15.39±0.81	.27	NS
LW% BW	5.59±0.12	5.03±0.11	.01	S	4.83±0.10	4.69±0.18	.58	NS
Renal fibrosis	1.69±0.53	1.25±0.42	.12	NS	2.00±0.32	1.81±0.46	.45	NS
Liver fibrosis	2.44±0.18	2.08±0.38	.035	S	2.30±0.27	2.19±0.26	.48	NS
14-week feeding protocol	𝑛=12	𝑛=10	𝑃-value and significance
Body weight (gr)	315±8.7	323±9.7	.58	NS
Kidney weight (gr)	4.57±0.13	3.91±0.16	.004	S
KW% BW	1.46±0.06	1.21±0.04	.004	S
Renal cyst vol (ml)	0.66±0.06	0.42±0.09	.035	S
Liver weight (gr)	20.2±0.76	16.0±0.05	.0002	S
LW% BW	6.47±0.35	4.86±0.11	.001	S
Renal cortical fibrosis	2.69±0.10	2.33±0.11	.026	S
Renal medullary fibrosis	2.17±0.10	2.09±0.10	.569	NS
Liver fibrosis	2.46±0.07	2.58±0.04	.171	NS

PCK rats were fed on control or pioglitazone-supplemented diet (20 mg/kg BW) from weeks 3–10 (7 weeks) or 4–18 (14 weeks). The values given are averages ± SEM. Abbreviations: KW% BW: total kidney weight as a percentage of total body weight; renal cyst vol: the estimated renal cystic volume; LW% BW: liver weight as a percentage of total body weight. Fibrosis was scaled on a 1–4 point scale using deidentified picrosirus red stained slides of transverse kidney sections as described in the methods section. 𝑃-values are for the comparison of control versus pioglitazone-supplemented diets by Students 𝑡-test. 𝑃 less than  .05 is considered significant. NS: not significant.