Understanding how high blood pressure causes kidney damage

Druggable target discovery in hypertensive renal injury: vascular purinergic receptor X7

BHF Postdoctoral Basic Science Research Fellow Dr Robert Menzies is working out how uncontrolled high blood pressure can lead to kidney damage. Drugs that target blood pressure directly do reduce kidney damage but kidney function steadily declines over time. Dr Menzies has already identified several genes in rats that are responsible for kidney injury as a result of high blood pressure. In this study, he will focus on one of the most promising genes he has identified, which encodes a receptor molecule called P2X7R. In the small blood vessels of the kidney where the earliest signs of injury are often found, Dr Menzies has found higher levels of P2X7R. He will work out how this receptor contributes to kidney injury in rats with high blood pressure, and how it develops over time. He will test molecules which could be used as drugs to modify kidney injury using a range of genetic, pharmaceutical and computational techniques. By understanding more about the genes involved in kidney injury, this research will reveal more about how blood pressure leads to it, and could targets for new drugs to treat it.