TRPC6, TRPM6, and TRPP2 have been implicated in hereditary focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS), hypomagnesemia with secondary hypocalcemia (HSH), and polycystic kidney disease (PKD), respectively.
Polycystic kidney disease (PKD) is a life-threatening disorder, commonly caused by defects in polycystin-1 (PC1) or polycystin-2 (PC2), in which tubular epithelia form fluid-filled cysts.
Using the yeast two-hybrid assay, we found that PC2 interacts with the microtubule-dependent motor kinesin-2 subunit KIF3A, a protein involved in polycystic kidney disease.
Other genes related to and interacting with the trp family include the Grc gene, which codes for a growth factor-regulated channel protein, and PKD1/PKD2, involved in polycystic kidney disease.
To determine whether defects in other human cystoproteins have similar effects, we studied extracellular acidification and glucose metabolism in human embryonic kidney (HEK-293) cell lines with polycystic kidney and hepatic disease 1 ( PKHD1) and polycystic kidney disease (PKD) 2 ( PKD2) truncating defects along multiple sites of truncating mutations found in patients with autosomal recessive and dominant PKDs.
PKD1 and PKD2 are two recently identified genes that are responsible for the vast majority of autosomal polycystic kidney disease, a common inherited disease that causes progressive renal failure.
These data suggest that polycystin-2 functions as a calcium-activated intracellular calcium release channel in vivo and that polycystic kidney disease results from the loss of a regulated intracellular calcium release signalling mechanism.
Various polycystic kidney disease (PKD) animal models including Pkd1- or Pkd2-deficient mice have been developed and efficiently utilized to identify novel therapeutic targets as well as elucidate multiple mechanisms of cyst formation in PKD.
Male worm mating requires lov-1 and pkd-2 (homologs of the human polycystic kidney disease genes, PKD1 and PKD2), which are expressed in male-specific neurons.