Biomedical subjects

Carmel Hensey

Publications and source records attributed to Carmel Hensey.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Eye and neural defects associated with loss of GDF6.

BACKGROUND: In Xenopus the bone morphogenetic protein growth and differentiation factor 6 (GDF6) is expressed at the edge of the neural plate, and within the anterior neural plate including the eye fields. Here we address the role of GDF6 in neural and eye development by morpholino knockdown experiments. RESULTS: We show that depletion of GDF6 (BMP13) resulted in a reduction in eye size, loss of laminar structure and a reduction in differentiated neural cell types within the retina. This correlated with a reduction in staining for Smad1/5/8 phosphorylation indicating a decrease in GDF6 signalling through loss of phosphorylation of these intracellular mediators of bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) signalling. In addition, the Pax6 expression domain is reduced in size at early optic vesicle stages. Neural cell adhesion molecule (NCAM) is generally reduced in intensity along the neural tube, while in the retina and brain discreet patches of NCAM expression are also lost. GDF6 knock down resulted in an increase in cell death along the neural tube and within the retina as determined by terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP nick end labeling (TUNEL) staining. CONCLUSION: Our data demonstrate that GDF6 has an important role in neural differentiation in the eye as well as within the central nervous system, and that GDF6 may act in some way to maintain cell survival within the ectoderm, during the normal waves of programmed cell death.

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PubMed2003

Gremlin - a putative pathogenic player in progressive renal disease.

Progressive renal fibrosis is the end process of renal injury leading to kidney failure. Current therapies for chronic renal failure aim to slow this process but fail to halt its progression. As the mechanisms involved in glomerulosclerosis and tubulointerstitial fibrosis are unravelled, potential treatments for this growing clinical problem should emerge. Gremlin, a developmental regulator of bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs), has recently been implicated in processes such as glomerulosclerosis, tubulointerstitial fibrosis and cellular hypertrophy, and may represent a novel therapeutic target in progressive renal diseases.

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PubMed2002

Diabetic nephropathy: renal development gone awry?

Nephrogenesis is controlled by a sequence of inductive signals between different areas of the developing kidney. As these signals are being elucidated, it has become clear that many important developmental genes are re-expressed in the mature organ following injury, possibly as part of repair and regeneration. While this reuse of developmental pathways may contribute to healing and repair, it may alternatively result in scar formation if specific components of the pathways are missing, if the temporal correlation of various elements is faulty, or if an injurious stimulus persists. In the review we will use diabetic nephropathy as an example to illustrate this paradigm in renal disease. The pathogenesis of diabetic nephropathy is complex and characterized by altered expression of many genes, including growth factors, apoptotic regulators, cellular matrix components, and cytoskeletal proteins. Many of these factors also function during kidney development. The elucidation of the roles these genes play in nephrogenesis and of their array of molecular partners and modulators may ultimately shed light on the pathogenesis of disease (and indeed vice versa), and may even suggest new therapeutic strategies.

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PubMed2002

The Xenopus pronephros as a model system for the study of kidney development and pathophysiology.

By analysing the expression and function of DN-associated genes during renal development in vivo, it may be possible to shed light on their pathogenic roles in the disease. The embryos of the African clawed frog Xenopus laevis provide a useful model for analysing early embryonic development, particularly organogenesis. Their rapid, external development and the large size of embryos allow for ease of observation and manipulation of the developmental programme. The Xenopus pronephros represents a single nephron, the basic unit of the successive vertebrate renal organs, i.e. the mesonephros and metanephros, and thus provides a useful model of nephrogenesis. Suppression subtractive hybridization was used to identify genes induced when primary cultures of mesangial cells are exposed to high extracellular glucose. Among these genes was the bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) gremlin. Interestingly gremlin is expressed in Xenopus pronephros at stage 27 where it has the potential to interact with BMPs and related regulators of nephrogenesis. Further analysis of the role of gremlin in renal development may shed light on their roles in disease.

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