Calpain activation and secretion promote glomerular injury in experimental glomerulonephritis: evidence from calpastatin-transgenic mice.

Glomerular injury and albuminuria in acute glomerulonephritis are related to the severity of inflammatory process. Calpain, a calcium-activated cysteine protease, has been shown to participate in the development of the inflammatory process. Therefore, for determination of the role of calpain in the pathophysiology of acute glomerulonephritis, transgenic mice that constitutively express high levels of calpastatin, a calpain-specific inhibitor protein, were generated. Wild-type mice that were subjected to anti-glomerular basement membrane nephritis exhibited elevated levels of calpain activity in kidney cortex at the heterologous phase of the disease. This was associated with the appearance in urine of calpain activity, which originated potentially from inflammatory cells, abnormal transglomerular passage of plasma proteins, and tubular secretion. In comparison with nephritic wild-type mice, nephritic calpastatin-transgenic mice exhibited limited activation of calpain in kidney cortex and limited secretion of calpain activity in urine. This was associated with less severe glomerular injury (including capillary thrombi and neutrophil activity) and proteinuria. There was a reduction in NF-kappaB activation, suggesting that calpain may participate in inflammatory lesions through NF-kappaB activation. There also was a reduction in nephrin disappearance from the surface of podocytes, indicating that calpain activity would enhance proteinuria by affecting nephrin expression. Exposure of cultured podocytes to calpain decreased nephrin expression, and, conversely, exposure of these cells to calpastatin prevented TNF-alpha from decreasing nephrin expression, demonstrating a role for the secreted form of calpain. Thus, both activation and secretion of calpains participate in the development of immune glomerular injury.

Extracellular calpains increase tubular epithelial cell mobility. Implications for kidney repair after ischemia.

Calpains are intracellular Ca2+-dependent cysteine proteases that are released in the extracellular milieu by tubular epithelial cells following renal ischemia. Here we show that externalized calpains increase epithelial cell mobility and thus are critical for tubule repair. In vitro, exposure of human tubular epithelial cells (HK-2 cells) to mu-calpain limited their adhesion to extracellular matrix and increased their mobility. Calpains acted primarily by promoting the cleavage of fibronectin, thus preventing fibronectin binding to the integrin alphavbeta3. Analyzing downstream integrin effects, we found that the cyclic AMP-dependent protein kinase A pathway was activated in response to alphavbeta3 disengagement and was essential for calpain-mediated increase in HK-2 cell mobility. In a murine model of ischemic acute renal failure, injection of a fragment of calpastatin, which specifically blocked calpain activity in extracellular milieu, markedly delayed tubule repair, increasing functional and histological lesions after 24 and 48 h of reperfusion. These findings suggest that externalized calpains are critical for tubule repair process in acute renal failure.