Mononuclear phagocyte depletion strategies in models of acute kidney disease: what are they trying to tell us?

Mononuclear phagocytes (macrophages, dendritic cells, and monocytes) play a complex role in kidney disease. Techniques for selectively depleting them in rodents have made important contributions but have also generated some contradictory results. Ferenbach et al. report that two widely used mononuclear phagocyte depletion techniques differentially affect early severity of renal ischemia/reperfusion injury and provide evidence that this may be due to a residual, protective subset that persists in the kidney after one of the two techniques. Kidney International (2012) 82, 835-837. doi:10.1038/ki.2012.16