An Integrative Biology Approach to Study Podocyte Function

The podocyte plays important role in maintaining an intact filtration barrier, and defect or loss of podocytes is a major cause of inherited and acquired glomerular diseases. Efforts towards a comprehensive understanding of the role of the podocyte in the glomerular pathobiology leading to novel ways to target the podocyte for therapeutic intervention remain a major research focus in nephrology. The development of molecular medicine allows us to generate comprehensive profiles of information at genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic and metabolomic levels to define podocyte function and failure. Integrating data from two or more of these approaches improves functional annotations and facilitates the formulation of biological hypotheses. We will review the definition of systems biology, the integration between large-scale datasets, the current status of the systems biology approach in podocyte research, as well as the challenges and opportunities in the field. We also will introduce relevant databases and useful tool suites that can help to efficiently extract the relevant information out of the sometime overwhelming amounts of data generated. Integrating the emerging large-scale datasets in podocyte research will advance our understanding of podocyte development and function, pathophysiology of glomerular diseases, and identification of podocyte-centric therapeutic targets. (C) 2014 S. Karger AG, Basel