Issue Archive

Recent advances in nephronectin

QIAN Guo-Qing^1,2,*, YANG Nai-Bin², SHI Jie-Jun²

¹Department of Respiratory Medicine, Ningbo Hospital of Zhejiang University, Ningbo 315010, China；² Department of General Internal Medicine, Ningbo First Hospital, Ningbo University, Ningbo 315010, China

Abstract

Nephronectin (NPNT) is a novel extracellular matrix protein and a new ligand of integrin α8β1. Recent studies showed that NPNT is highly expressed in kidney, lung, thyroid, etc, and it may play an important role in many pathological conditions. NPNT is involved in the process of kidney development and acute kidney injury, regulates proliferation and differentiation of osteoblast, and induces the vasculogenesis in vitro. NPNT may play a key role in pathological osteoporosis and therefore be a new therapeutic target of bone diseases. NPNT gene variants are not only associated with lung function, but also potentially implicated in chronic airway diseases development. Moreover, NPNT is also an important factor that mediates pathology of cardiac, epidermis, breast, liver and teeth diseases. In this paper, we reviewed some research progresses on the structure, distribution, physiological and pathophysiological functions of NPNT.

Key words: nephronectin; tissue distribution; physiological function

Received: 2019-02-27　　Accepted: 2019-04-09

Corresponding author: 钱国清　　E-mail: guoqing.qian@foxmail.com

DOI: 10.13294/j.aps.2019.0064

Citing This Article：

QIAN Guo-Qing, YANG Nai-Bin, SHI Jie-Jun. Recent advances in nephronectin. Acta Physiol Sin 2019; 71 (5): 799-805 (in Chinese with English abstract).