Abstract 24: Tubular Vegfa is Required for Renal Microvasculature and Oxygen Sensing
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Adequate renal oxygenation is pivotal for maintaining essential functions of the kidney. Vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGFA) plays a key role in vascular formation and maintenance, processes that are critical for sufficient tissue perfusion and oxygenation. Here we show that Vegfa is expressed in select tubular epithelial cells within the nephron, while expression of its receptor ( Kdr/Vegfr2 ) is restricted largely to capillary beds. Early genetic ablation of tubular Vegfa allows the formation of a grossly normal kidney. However, microvascular density is markedly reduced, leading to increased renal hypoxia. As a consequence the mice develop pronounced polycythemia (81 ± 1.62 vs. 58 ± 0.87 % Hematocrit), due to an increase in serum erythropoietin concentration (426.5 ± 49.3 vs. 249.3 ± 13.6 pg/ml). The elevation in circulating erythropoietin is elicited by an augmented renal production of the hormone, and occurs independent of changes in hepatic expression. In kidney, expression of classical hypoxia-inducible factor-1 responsive transcripts remains unaltered; suggesting that erythropoiesis partly compensates the capillary rarefaction. An increase in diastolic blood pressure (DBP, 112 ± 3.7 vs. 104 ± 1.6 mmHg) is present in mice lacking tubular Vegfa maintained on a normal diet, while systolic blood pressure (SBP, 139 ± 2.8 vs. 135 ± 2.8 mmHg) does not change. The difference in diastolic pressure is ablated when dietary NaCl content changed (DBP: 107 ± 3.1 vs. 103 ± 2.7 mmHg; SBP: 132 ± 4.1 vs. 131 ± 2.9 mmHg; for low NaCl), or when angiotensin II is infused (DBP: 137 ± 6.7 vs. 134 ± 3.8 mmHg; SBP: 161 ± 7.6 vs. 162 ± 9.3 mmHg). Moreover, renal electrolyte excretion remains unperturbed by reductions in tubular Vegfa. In conclusion, tubular Vegfa is critical for adequate development of renal microvasuculature, a prerequisite for proper oxygenation of the kidney. Compensatory polycythemia likely prevents severe perturbations of renal function in this model. In addition, increased diastolic blood pressure may occur as a consequence of capillary rarefaction within the kidney.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.006 | 0.002 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".