Headline-Making Research
Calcium Signaling Laboratory Team: (left to right) Samuel Shin, Farai Gombedza, Bidhan Bandyopadhyay, Eugenia Awuah Boadi, Harrison Streeter, Bok-Eum Choi, not shown: Samuel Yeroushalmi and Peijun Li.
The Washington DC VA Medical Center’s Calcium Signaling Laboratory’s latest research has been published in the International Journal of Molecular Science. The manuscript, Modulation of Tubular pH by Acetazolamide in a Ca2+ Transport Deficient Mice Facilitates Calcium Nephrolithiasis, discusses how Acetazolamide, a diuretic commonly used in various healthcare interventions, can increase the risk of kidney stones in individuals with higher urine calcium.
The study, published in the journal’s Volume 22, Issue 5, found that Acetazolamide not only disrupts the calcium uptake by the kidney cells so that more urinary calcium is available to form calcium crystals, but also can damage kidney tubular cells, which can accelerate the growth and aggregation of stones.
Dr. Bidhan C. Bandyopadhyay, Chief, Calcium Signaling Laboratory, explains how Acetazolamide, a diuretic commonly used to treat altitude sickness, epilepsy, and glaucoma, can increase the risk of kidney stones and how the team simulated the rise in tubular pH to observe the development of calcium phosphate and calcium oxalate mixed stone formation in genetically ablated mice model.
“Proximal tubule (PT), as the first part of nephron reabsorbs ions and maintains acid-base balance. As a result, urine becomes alkaline due to a reduction in PT bicarbonate resorptive capacity and wasting in the urine,” Dr. Bandyopadhyay said.
Dr. Bandyopadhyay is proud of the research team’s work which is dedicated to finding “cures through discovery”.
To view the research, please visit: IJMS | Free Full-Text | Modulation of Tubular pH by Acetazolamide in a Ca2+ Transport Deficient Mice Facilitates Calcium Nephrolithiasis (mdpi.com)
