Low testosterone levels may protect women from kidney injury

Men get acute kidney wounded – wherever kidney show abruptly declines – astatine a higher complaint than women. An experimentation with mice suggests that this could beryllium related to having higher levels of testosterone

Health 8 November 2022

By Grace Wade

Acute kidney wounded causes a abrupt diminution successful kidney function

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Low testosterone levels look to support kidney cells successful mice from compartment death. The uncovering could explicate wherefore women are astatine a little hazard of acute kidney wounded than men.

Tomokazu Souma astatine Duke University successful North Carolina collected kidney samples from 8 mice – 4 females and 4 males – and genetically sequenced them. They identified 128 genes that were expressed otherwise betwixt the 2 sexes and further investigation revealed galore of these genes were related to a peculiar compartment process called NRF2. This process is known to support against ferroptosis, a signifier of compartment decease that is simply a operator of acute kidney wounded successful people, wherever the kidneys abruptly diminution successful performance.

To effort to enactment retired whether enactment hormones impact the extortion provided by NRF2, the team, successful a abstracted experiment, removed the ovaries of six pistillate mice and the testicles of 4 antheral mice truthful that the mice would person little oestrogen and little testosterone respectively than normal.

They sequenced the animals’ genes 3 to 4 weeks aboriginal and recovered that, successful the pistillate mice, the genes progressive successful NRF2 weren’t affected by the procedure. But for the antheral mice, determination was implicit a fivefold increase, connected average, successful the look of 2 of the genes – GSTA4 and CBR1 – erstwhile compared with mice with testicles.

This suggests that testosterone reduces the NRF2 process successful antheral mice, leaving them much susceptible to ferroptosis successful their kidneys and perchance explaining wherefore men person higher incidences of kidney injury, says Souma.

Oestrogen whitethorn inactive play a relation successful the enactment differences for kidney disease, however. Another experimentation from the squad recovered that pistillate mice without ovaries had worse kidney relation than those that did.

“There are galore antithetic mechanisms that person been explored with respect to enactment differences successful acute kidney injury, and they each look plausible,” says Joel Neugarten astatine Montefiore Medical Center successful New York. “And it’s astir apt a operation of antithetic factors that explicate the difference.”

Journal reference: Cell Reports, DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2022.111610

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