Scientific Publications by FDA Staff

Am J Pathol 2012 Sep;181(3):818-28

Fibrinogen excretion in the urine and immunoreactivity in the kidney serves as a translational biomarker for acute kidney injury.

Hoffmann D, Bijol V, Krishnamoorthy A, Gonzalez VR, Frendl G, Zhang Q, Goering PL, Brown RP, Waikar SS, Vaidya VS

Fibrinogen (Fg) is significantly up-regulated in the kidney after acute kidney injury (AKI). We evaluated the performance of Fg as a biomarker for early detection of AKI. In rats and mice with kidney tubular damage induced by ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) or cisplatin administration, respectively; kidney tissue and urinary Fg increased significantly and correlated with histopathological injury, urinary kidney injury molecule-1 (KIM-1) and N-acetyl glucosaminidase (NAG) corresponding to the progression and regression of injury temporally. In a longitudinal follow-up of 31 patients who underwent surgical repair of abdominal aortic aneurysm, urinary Fg increased earlier than SCr in patients who developed postoperative AKI (AUC-ROC = 0.72). Furthermore, in a cohort of patients with biopsy-proven AKI (n = 53), Fg immunoreactivity in the tubules and interstitium increased remarkably and was able to distinguish patients with AKI from those without AKI (n = 59). These results suggest that immunoreactivity of Fg in the kidney, as well as urinary excretion of Fg, serves as a sensitive and early diagnostic translational biomarker for detection of AKI.