“Role of Autophagy in Type 2 Diabetic Patients with Nephropathy”

Abstract

In the twenty-first century globally, DM is seriously considered as one of the most threatening public health and economy challenges. The major driving factors of the global T2DM epidemic include overweight and obesity, lethargic lifestyle, increased consumption of unhealthy diets containing high levels processed meat and smoking. Among patients with T2DM, cardiovascular complications are the leading cause of morbidity and mortality, and kidney complications are highly prevalent. Complications of T2DM are very familiar as in most developing countries, patients with DM are at a particularly increased risk of developing kidney complications with approximately 30% of patients with T2DM presenting with microvascular complications as DN which currently became the leading cause of ESRD worldwide. The early gold pointer of DN is an increased amount of urinary protein, indicated by ‘albuminuria’, which correlates with, and can predict, the progression of renal damage. Albuminuria arises from defects in the permeability of the glomerular filtration barrier accompanied by tubular cell damage. As the human body is designed to compensate for loss, autophagy is a cellular recycling process involving self-degradation and reconstruction of damaged organelles and proteins. Current evidence suggests that autophagy is critical in kidney physiology and homeostasis as long as it’s believed to play a fundemental role in the pathophysiology of DN. As autophagy is altered in