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Alterations of Gene Expression and Signaling Pathway Activity in Venous Smooth Muscle Cells After Uremic Serum Exposure

Key takeaways

Researchers put muscle cells from vein walls into blood serum from people with kidney failure. Serum is the liquid part of blood, and in kidney failure it carries waste the kidneys should clear. The cells changed which genes they used and how their signaling pathways behaved. This may help explain why veins used for dialysis access narrow or fail, but it was done in cells in a lab, not in people yet.

Who did this work

Youyou Zheng (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) · Unimunkh Uriyanghai (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) · Christine Wai (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) · Mihaela Mocanu (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) · John S. Poulton (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) · Prabir Roy-Chaudhury (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) · Gang Xi (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

Source

Paper · OpenAlex, CKD works · 2026-09-13
https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms27188148