Effects of Donor-Recipient Age Difference in Renal Transplantation, an Investigation on Renal Function and Fluid Proteome

Abstract

Introduction

Our previous study revealed that a young internal environment ameliorated kidney aging by virtue of an animal model of heterochronic parabiosis and a model of heterochronic renal transplantation. In this research, we used proteome to investigate the effects of donor-recipient age difference in clinical renal transplantation.

Methods

This study included 10 pairs of renal transplantation donors and recipients with an age difference of greater than 20 years to their corresponding recipients/donors. All recipients have received transplantation more than 3 years ago. Renal function and the serum/urine proteomes of the donors and recipients were analyzed.

Results

The renal function was similar between the young recipients and the old donors. In contrast, the renal function of the young donors was significantly superior to that of the old recipients. Furthermore, 497 and 975 proteins were identified in the serum and urine proteomes, respectively. The content of SLC3A2 in the blood was found to be related to aging, while the contents of SERPINA1 and SERPINA3 in the urine were related to immune functions after renal transplantation.

Conclusion

This study demonstrated that, in the human body, a younger internal environment could ameliorate kidney aging and provided not only clinical evidence for increasing the age limit of kidney transplant donors but also new information for kidney aging research.

Keywords:

• renal transplantation
• aging
• proteome
• living donor transplantation

Summary

In summary, our study further demonstrated that a young internal environment might ameliorate kidney aging and improve the function of transplanted kidneys from elderly donors. Our study provided preliminary clinical evidence for increasing the age limit of renal transplant donors. However, due to the limited sample size, the findings of the present study need to be further verified by large-scale clinical studies. In addition, we found that SLC3A2 might be related to kidney aging and that SERPINA1 and SERPINA3 might be related to transplanted kidney rejection. These findings provided new clues for the investigation of related mechanisms and clinical biological marker screening.

Disclosure

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.