Mesangial cells in a diabetic kidney play a major role in the initiation and progression of renal failure. Our previous studies have shown that the mesangial cell proliferation and matrix production are influenced by renal generation of nitric oxide. Most of these observations were made in cultured mesangial cells but how these effects are impacted by the ineraction with other renal cells is unknown. We tested the hypothesis that mesangial cell growth and proliferation as well as nitric oxide generation are altered in the presence of renal tubular cells.
Prabhakar et al. (Wed,) studied this question.