Minimal Change Disease Following the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine.

We report on the development of minimal change disease (MCD) with nephrotic syndrome and acute kidney injury (AKI), shortly after first injection of the BNT162b2 COVID-19 vaccine (Pfizer-BioNTech). A 50-year-old previously healthy man was admitted to our hospital following the appearance of peripheral edema. Ten days earlier, he had received the first injection of the vaccine.

Unmasking of proteinuria in the course of genetic dissection of nonproteinuric diabetic nephropathy.

We previously described the development of nonproteinuric diabetic nephropathy (NPDN) in the Cohen diabetic rat (CDs), a model that simulates Type 2 diabetes in humans. Using linkage analysis in an F2 cross, we currently set out to investigate the mechanisms underlying NPDN. We crossbred between CDs and SBN/y, a nondiabetic rat strain, generated F1 and F2 progenies, fed them diabetogenic diet that elicits diabetes and NPDN in CDs but not in SBN/y, and determined metabolic and renal phenotypes.

Geno-transcriptomic dissection of proteinuria in the uninephrectomized rat uncovers a molecular complexity with sexual dimorphism.

Investigation of proteinuria, whose pathophysiology remains incompletely understood, is confounded by differences in the phenotype between males and females. We initiated a sex-specific geno-transcriptomic dissection of proteinuria in uninephrectomized male and female Sabra rats that spontaneously develop focal and segmental glomerulosclerosis, testing the hypothesis that different mechanisms might underlie the pathophysiology of proteinuria between the sexes. In the genomic arm, we scanned the genome of 136 male and 111 female uninephrectomized F2 populations derived from crosses between SBH/y and SBN/y.

Metabolic and genomic dissection of diabetes in the Cohen rat.

We investigated the metabolic and genetic basis of diabetes in the Cohen Diabetic rat, a model of diet-induced diabetes, as a means to identify the molecular mechanisms involved. By altering individual components in the diabetogenic diet, we established that the dietary susceptibility that leads to the development of diabetes in this model is directly related to the high casein and low copper content in chow. The development of diabetes is accompanied by depletion of the acini from the exocrine pancreas and replacement with fat cells, while the appearance of the islets of Langerhans remains intact.

Genetic dissection of proteinuria in the Sabra rat.

The pathophysiology underlying proteinuria remains incompletely understood and warrants further research. We currently initiated the investigation of the genetic basis of proteinuria in the Sabra rat, a model of salt susceptibility that we showed previously to be also a model of spontaneous proteinuria that is unrelated to salt loading or development of hypertension. We applied the total genome scan strategy in 75 F2 male animals derived from a cross between SBH/y, which are prone to develop proteinuria, and SBN/y, which are relatively resistant to the development of proteinuria.