An MDC research team has discovered surprising new properties in fluconazole, a long-approved antifungal drug. The substance helps draw water out of the urine. The researchers demonstrated this in rodents. The antifungal agent could one day help patients with rare genetic diseases in which the water transport of the kidneys is impaired. However, the path to therapy is not easy.
Up to 20 liters of urine rush into the toilet every day and they have to drink just as much. This severely restricts the lives of patients with water urinary dysentery (diabetes insipidus). With them, the kidneys do not remove enough water from the urine. This can have genetic causes, but it can also be triggered by medication, for example.
A fungal drug called fluconazole could help these people in the future. The research teams led by Dr. Enno Klußmann and Professor Kai Schmidt-Ott at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) in Berlin. In their new work in the journal of the American Society of Nephrology, they explain how the drug works in the kidneys. But they also show why it is not suitable for everyone suffering from diabetes insipidus.
Tanja Vukicevic, Christian Hinze, et al. (2018): „Fluconazole Increases Osmotic Water Transport in Renal Collecting Duct through Effects on Aquaporin-2 Trafficking.“ J Am Soc Nephrol 30. doi:10.1681/ASN.2018060668
Links
https://www.mdc-berlin.de/de/news/press/ein-pilzmedikament-hilft-der-niere-auf-die-spruenge
https://jasn.asnjournals.org/content/30/5/795.long
Contact
Scientific Secretary of the Collaborative Research Center CRC 1365 Renoprotection Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin
Postal address:Berlin
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