Serial Changes of Urinary Proteome in Animal Models of Renal Diseases

Urine is directly connected to the urinary system; as a result, urine proteome was usually used for renal diseases. As urine accumulates all types of changes, identifying the precise cause of changes in the urine proteome is challenging and crucial in biomarker discovery. To reduce the confounding factors to minimal, some studies used animal model resembling human diseases. This chapter highlights the importance of animal models and introduces two strategic researches which focused on serial changes of urine proteome in animal model of focal segmental glomerulosclerosis and tubular injury. In these studies, urine samples were collected at different stages of animal models, and urinary proteins were profiled by LC-MS/MS. For the focal segmental glomerulosclerosis model, 25 urinary proteins changed in the whole process. For the unilateral ureteral obstruction model, 7 and 19 significantly changed in the 1- and 3-week groups, respectively. We think these stage-dependent dynamic changes of urine proteome in animal models will help to support the role of urine as key source in biomarker discovery especially in kidney diseases and help to identify corresponding biomarkers for clinical validation.