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Disease Week: Zebrafish Model Organism

Published: November 8, 2019
By: Sataree Khuansuwan, PhD
Tags: zebrafish

Zebrafish first emerged over three decades ago as a promising animal model to better understand embryonic development in vertebrates. Recently, it has gained a foothold as a model to study human diseases and for drug discovery. Despite the vast amount of evolutionary time separating fish from humans, we share important similarities including most of our major organ systems as well as 70% of our genes. As such, many diseases can be modeled and studied in zebrafish. Unlike mammals, adult zebrafish have a nearly unparalleled regenerative capacity to replace and repair injured tissues including heart, spinal cord, and brain. Understanding how...

Published: November 6, 2019
By: Arkana Author

The diagnosis of membranous glomerulopathy has evolved rapidly in the past 10 years since the identification of PLA2R as the major target antigen in primary membranous glomerulopathy. Today, rather than subtyping into vague categories such as 'primary' and 'secondary', we have tools available to name the specific type of disease present in most cases. Arkana Laboratories offers diagnostic testing for membranous glomerulopathy including immunohistochemical stains for tissue typing of PLA2R, THSD7A, EXT1/2, and NELL1 membranous and serum testing to monitor disease in patients with PLA2R and THSD7A-associated membranous glomerulopathy.

Published: October 31, 2019
By: Vanessa Moreno, MD

ANSWER: D ADPKD is genetically heterogeneous with two major genes, PKD1 and PKD2 (~90% families), and a rare third locus, GANAB lately discovered. Less than 10% of ADPKD families are negative for these genes. More recently, DNAJB11 has been identified in those patients from ADPKD-negative pedigrees. For the blog: ADPKD is the most common inherited kidney disorder. Two genes PKD1 and PKD2, coding for membrane proteins involved in the primary cilium, account for more than 90% of typical cases of ADPKD. A third gene, GANAB coding for the α-subunit of the endoplasmic reticulum-resident enzyme glucosidase II, has been associated with...

Published: October 25, 2019
By: Arkana Author

[video width="1920" height="1080" mp4="https://www.arkanalabs.com/wp-content/uploads/Fellowing-Joel-Ep-7.mp4"][/video] This week we caught Dr. Murphy behind the scope with Dr. Kuperman as he was asked to explain his diagnosis of a tricky case.

Published: October 25, 2019
By: Tiffany Caza, MD

The above painting shows a glomerulus containing capillary loop fibrin thrombi, an arteriole with onion-skinning, and acute tubular injury, findings that can be seen in thrombotic microangiopathy. Morphologic findings of thrombotic microangiopathy that can be seen on a renal biopsy include arteriolar or capillary loop fibrin or platelet thrombi, red blood cell fragmentation within glomerular capillary loops or within arteries, mesangiolysis, endothelial cell swelling, glomerular basement membrane duplication, mucoid intimal edema of arteries, and a myointimal proliferation surrounding arterioles (onion-skinning like reaction). Thrombotic microangiopathy (TMA) has a wide clinical differential diagnosis, which can have substantial morphologic overlap on a kidney...

Published: October 24, 2019
By: Arkana Author

The patient is a 45-year-old IV drug user who presents with fevers, chills, hematuria, and fatigue. On laboratory testing, he was found to have a creatinine of 4.8. Complement levels are depressed and blood cultures are positive. A transesophageal echocardiogram confirmed the presence of endocarditis. A kidney biopsy was obtained due to hematuria. Image 1 and Image 3 shows circumferential cellular crescents with fibrinoid necrosis (many intracapillary neutrophils are seen in image 3). Figure 2 shows severe interstitial fibrosis. Images 4 and 5 show immunofluorescence staining with IgM and C3, respectively. This is a case of endocarditis-associated glomerulonephritis with diffuse...

Published: October 18, 2019
By: David Bourne, MD

Kidney transplant donors and autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease.

Published: October 16, 2019
By: Arkana Author

Last week Gail pulled her dummy from the closet (he goes by River around here) to set him up as someone taking a nap in the common space. Since then, River has entertained a visitor... Caught up on some reading... And started to plan his Halloween costume! He's really been checking things off of his to-do list this past week.

Published: October 14, 2019
By: Arkana Author

Meet Kaleigh Miskin. Kaleigh is a cytologist and histologist who joined our lab in 2015. She received her cytotech degree from University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in 2015 and became a licensed histotechnologist in 2017. Her knowledge, ability, and attitude led to her promotion to Assistant Lead in the Light Microscopy section of our laboratory in 2018. Co-workers describe Kaleigh as kind, positive, organized and patient. She leads by example and is quick to jump in to help without complaint. Likewise, Kaleigh says her favorite part about working at Arkana is the environment. "There are nice people, we get...

Published: October 11, 2019
By: Arkana Author

This week Dr. Murphy learned a lesson in Arkana culture. [video width="1920" height="1080" mp4="https://www.arkanalabs.com/wp-content/uploads/IMG_1387-1.mp4"][/video]

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Disease Week: Zebrafish Model Organism

Membranous Glomerulopathy Subtyping

Twitter Poll: October 30, 2019

Fellowing Joel: Episode 7

Art of Medicine: Thrombotic Microangiopathy

Endocarditis-Associated Glomerulonephritis

KDIGO Connections: ADPKD in Kidney Transplant Candidates

River the Office Dummy

Arkana Employee Spotlight: Kaleigh

Fellowing Joel: Episode 5

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