Abstract 016: Profound and Sustained Amplification of Circulating ACE2 Activity Does Not Protect Diabetic Mice from Kidney Disease

Abstract

ACE2 is a monocarboxypeptidase that by converting AngII to Ang1-7 should down-regulate the renin-angiotensin system and therefore provide a means to therapeutically target diabetic kidney disease, a condition where the kidney RAS is overactive. Previous work indicated that soluble human recombinant (r)ACE2 administration for 4 weeks attenuated kidney injury in diabetic Akita mice. Whether such effect of rACE2 can be confirmed and attributed to augmented ACE2 activity is uncertain because chronic use of human rACE2 in mice induces immunogenicity and the development of antibodies that neutralize serum ACE2 activity. To examine the effect of chronic amplification of circulating ACE2 on kidney injury caused by STZ-induced diabetes and to circumvent the immunogenicity arising from xenogeneic ACE2, ACE2 of mouse origin was administered to mice using either daily i.p. injections (1 mg/kg) of mrACE2 for 4 weeks or after 20 weeks of ACE2 mini-circle (MC) (10-30ug/mouse) administration. MC provides a form of gene delivery that is resistant to gene silencing and, in addition, greatly optimizes long-term in vivo overexpression of proteins of interest. ACE2MC resulted in a profound and sustained increase in serum ACE2 activity (2.4±0.3 vs. 497±135 RFU/ul/hr, p<0.01) but kidney ACE2 activity was unchanged (17.4±1.3 vs. 19.0±0.8 RFU/ug prot/hr). mACE2-treated mice injected with STZ developed diabetes similar to sham mice injected with STZ. Systolic BP was not different between non-diabetic mice, sham STZ-mice, and STZ-mice receiving mACE2 by either i.p. mrACE2 or ACE2MC. Urinary albumin was similarly increased in sham STZ-mice and in STZ-mice receiving mACE2. Glomerular mesangial score and glomerular cellularity were both increased to a similar extent in sham STZ-mice and in STZ-mice with mACE2 administration, as compared to non-diabetic controls. In conclusion, profound and long-term augmentation of ACE2 activity confined to the circulation is not sufficient to attenuate glomerular pathology and albuminuria in STZ-induced diabetic kidney disease probably because of lack of kidney delivery of ACE2. Strategies to achieve over-expression of ACE2 at the kidney level are needed to demonstrate a beneficial effect of this enzyme on diabetic kidney disease.