Abstract
Acute kidney disease (AKI) leads to increased risk of progression to chronic kidney disease (CKD). Antithrombin III (ATIII) is a potent anticoagulant with anti-inflammatory properties, and we previously reported that insufficiencies of ATIII exacerbated renal ischaemia-reperfusion injury (IRI) in rats. In this study, we examined the characteristic of AKI-CKD transition in rats with two distinct AKI models. Based on our observation, left IRI plus right nephrectomy (NX-IRI) was used to determine whether ATIII had therapeutic effects in preventing CKD progression after AKI. It was observed that NX-IRI resulted in significant functional and histological damage at 5 weeks after NX-IRI compared with sham rats, which was mitigated by ATIII administration. Besides, we noticed that ATIII administration significantly reduced NX-IRI-induced interstitial fibrosis. Consistently, renal expression of collagen-1, α-smooth muscle actin and fibronectin were substantial diminished in ATIII-administered rats compared with un-treated NX-IRI rats. Furthermore, the beneficial effects of ATIII were accompanied with decreased M1-like macrophage recruitment and down-regulation of M1-like macrophage-dependent pro-inflammatory cytokines such as tumour necrosis factor α, inducible nitric oxide synthase and interleukin-1β, indicating that ATIII prevented AKI-CKD transition via inhibiting inflammation. Overall, ATIII shows potential as a therapeutic strategy for the prevention of CKD progression after AKI.