A study by Northwestern researchers might help develop a new therapy to treat kidney disease associated with diabetes.

The experiment, conducted by scientists at NU’s Feinberg School of Medicine, found that mice with this form of diabetes have low levels of an enzyme that helps regulate blood pressure.

The enzyme, called angiotensin-converting enzyme 2, helps break down a protein fundamental to maintaining blood pressure.

And too much of that protein, angiotensin, can cause kidney disease to develop faster, said Feinberg professor Daniel Batlle, who headed the study.

The researchers found that lowering the levels of ACE2, and therefore increasing levels of angiotensin, caused kidney disease to worsen.

Diabetes causes almost 45 percent of new cases of kidney failure, according to the National Kidney and Urological Diseases Information Clearinghouse Web site. Kidneys experiencing failure cannot adequately filter body wastes. Kidney failure is diagnosed in 100,000 people in the United States annually, according to the NKUDIC.

Batlle said scientists must conduct more studies to determine whether increasing the levels of ACE2 can help reverse the development of kidney disease.

“Obviously the new frontier is to develop compounds that will enhance the activities of ACE2,” he said. “Currently, they focus on ACE1 inhibitors to treat kidney disease. I am proposing a new therapy based on ACE2 activators.”

ACE1 inhibitors prevent the formation of angiotensin. But ACE2 can work at the other end by fostering angiotensin breakdown, Batlle said.

This new form of therapy can help treat patients who already have kidney disease, but it is still in the experimental phase.

“This is something still in the works,” Batlle said. “We have proven this enzyme is low in diabetic kidneys and that the inhibitor of the ACE2 enzyme makes it worse.”

Batlle also said they have to find out whether the therapy can also apply to humans.

“It is a promising therapy, but it has just been done in mice,” he said. “It needs to be proven in patients.”

The study was published in the November issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. Minghao Ye, Jan Wysocki, Josette William, Maria Jose Soler and Ivan Cokic were co-authors of the study.

– Ketul Patel