The recent findings about the role of the angiotensin AT2 receptor in renal health and disease strongly suggest that pharmacological targeting of this receptor with selective agonists is a promising therapeutic strategy for inducing diuresis/natriuresis (also additive to established diuretics) and for the treatment of diabetic nephropathy or kidney disease of other pathogenesis.
Further, the concomitant study of both systemic and local RAAS, counter-regulators of ACE and ACE2, and also AT1R and angiotensin II type 2 receptor (AT2R) genes could help to elucidate the role of the genes of this system in the pathogenesis of DN.
RAGE appears to be a common and key modulator of AT2 receptor expression, a finding that would implicate a newly defined RAGE-AT2 axis in the development and progression of diabetic nephropathy.