Asian Scientist Newsroom | August 8, 2016 | Health
kidAsianScientist (Aug. 8, 2016) - Researchers in Japan have found that measuring D-amino acid levels in patients can help doctors to identify chronic kidney disease patients at high-risk for progression to end-stage kidney disease. Their research findings were published in Scientific Reports.
Chronic kidney disease is a critical health problem and can lead to end-stage kidney disease. Additionally, the risk of cardiovascular diseases and death increases with the progression of chronic kidney disease. There is currently no effective method to determine the prognosis of chronic kidney disease.
On the other hand, D-amino acids are increasingly recognized as potential biomarkers in several diseases. Although D-amino acids are usually only present in trace amounts in the body, recent technological advancements have enabled us to measure D-amino acids with much higher sensitivity.
Led by Drs. Tomonori Kimura and Yoshitaka Isaka from the Department of Nephrology at Osaka University, the research group measured D-amino acid levels in the blood of chronic kidney disease patients and followed their prognoses. 16 out of 21 D-amino acids were detected in the blood of these patients.
Further analyses revealed that D-serine and D-asparagine were associated with the progression of chronic kidney disease. Furthermore, the risk of progression to end-stage kidney disease was elevated two- to four-fold in patients with higher levels of these two types of D-amino acids.
The researchers hope that the results of the present study will provide a new method for clinicians to identify chronic kidney disease patients at high-risk for progression to end-stage kidney disease. This method is also applicable to diseases like cardiovascular disease, diabetes mellitus and hypertension, the researchers said, as the prognoses of these diseases are strongly influenced by chronic kidney disease progression.
The article can be found at: Kimura et al. (2016) Chiral Amino Acid Metabolomics for Novel Biomarker Screening in the Prognosis of Chronic Kidney Disease.
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Source: Osaka University.
http://www.asianscientist.com/2016/08/health/biomarkers-d-amino-acids-chronic-kidney-disease/
