Volume 2012, Article ID 678381, 9 pages doi:10.1155/2012/678381 Research Article Mannan-Binding Lectin in Diabetic Kidney Disease: The Impact

Copyright © 2012 Jakob Appel Østergaard et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Background. Mannan-binding lectin (MBL) is involved in the development of diabetic nephropathy. MBL is a part of the innate immune system where it can activate the complement system. Serum MBL level predicts later renal impairment in diabetes patients. Direct involvement of MBL in the development of diabetic kidney disease is observed in one animal strain. However, this involvement may differ among the animal strains. We thus examined the impact of the genetic background on the role of MBL in diabetic nephropathy. Materials/Methods. C57BL/6JBomTac and 129S6/SvEvTac mice were compared. In both strains, experimental type 1 diabetes was induced in wild-type (WT) and MBL-knockout (MBL-KO) mice by streptozotocin. Nondiabetic WT and MBL-KO mice were used as controls. We tested if MBL modified the diabetes-induced kidney changes by two-way ANOVA allowing for interaction. Results. MBL aggravated diabetes-induced kidney growth and glomerulus enlargement i