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Renal physiology of urea transporters

LI Ying-Jie, YANG Bao-Xue^*

Department of Pharmacology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100191, China

Abstract

Urea transporters (UTs) are transmembrane urea-selective channel proteins that include two UT subfamilies, UT-A and UT-B. UT-A subfamily includes six members, UT-A1 to UT-A6, which are mainly expressed in kidney. UT-B subfamily has only one member that has a wide distribution in the body. UTs have been confirmed to play important roles in urinary concentration via the phenotypic analysis of 6 UT selective knockout mouse models. Experimental results suggest that UTs might be diuretic targets and that UT inhibitors might be developed as novel diuretics. This article reviews the physiological function and drug discovery of UT.

Key words: urea transporter; kidney; urine concentration; physiological function; diuretics

Received: 2018-06-05　　Accepted: 2018-09-30

Corresponding author: 杨宝学　　E-mail: baoxue@bjmu.edu.cn

DOI: 10.13294/j.aps.2018.0071

Citing This Article：

LI Ying-Jie, YANG Bao-Xue. Renal physiology of urea transporters. Acta Physiol Sin 2018; 70 (6): 649-656 (in Chinese with English abstract).