Can an extract from blueberries and sea buckthorn help treat diabetic kidney disease?

mRNA splicing control in diabetes: a novel therapeutic strategy for treatment of diabetic nephropathy

Although blood sugar (glucose) levels can be controlled relatively well in most people with diabetes, many will still develop complications that can affect their heart and blood vessels. These include a condition called diabetic nephropathy, where small blood vessels in the kidneys become damaged and protein leaks into the urine. In diabetes, many cell processes become faulty, including a process called alternative splicing, where a single gene can make different versions of the same protein. We don’t yet know why alternative splicing goes wrong in diabetes, and understanding this could uncover a new way to help stop diabetic complications from getting worse. In this project, Dr Oltean will work out how faulty splicing is linked to diabetic nephropathy. He has already found in mice that manipulating two forms of a protein called VEGF (which is important for making new blood vessels) affects diabetic nephropathy. The two forms of VEGF are produced by alternative splicing. Whereas one VEGF form promotes blood vessel leakiness and worsens diabetic nephropathy, the second form combats leakiness and helps to improve diabetic nephropathy. Dr Oltean’s group will now test whether it is possible to manipulate VEGF alternative splicing to produce more of the beneficial VEGF protein in a mouse model of diabetes. He will test a panel of compounds that affect splicing, including a natural extract of blueberry and sea buckthorn shrub, to see if he can switch splicing to produce the stabilising form of VEGF. He will also identify new molecules that control splicing of VEGF and other genes involved in diabetic kidney disease. This research could help find new ways to prevent dangerous complications developing in people with diabetes.