Caught flat-footed: podocyte damage and the molecular bases of focal glomerulosclerosis

Abstract

The renal glomerulus, the site of plasma ultrafiltration and the production of primary urine (1), is the locus of a number of progressive disorders that lead to chronic renal insufficiency. Before the advent of renal replacement therapies, these diseases invariably led to death by uremia. Still, while these treatments save, or at least extend, patient's lives, they do so at an enormous price, both in human and financial terms.