Dr. Pokidysheva started her collaboration with Dr. Murawala’s laboratory in the summer of 2021. The project is focused on understanding kidney filtration function in amphibians. Dr. Murawala has a colony of axolotls which serve as an animal model.
The glomerulus, which serves as the kidneys filtration unit, is composed of the glomerular basement membrane (GBM). This is a highly specialized form of extracellular matrix functioning as a sieve for filtering blood, of which Collagen IV is the major component. Last summer we found that axolotls have unique collagen IV composition of GBM. Surprisingly, similar composition is found in human patients with Alport Syndrome. How amphibians have healthy kidneys while mammals have severe disease under the same conditions is an intriguing question we hope to answer through this study. During Dr. Pokidysheva’s 2022 visit to MDIBL, they will work together to isolate glomeruli from the axolotls that will be further analyzed in her lab at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
It is anticipated that by the end of this year they will have two papers to publish as a result of this collaboration.
