A study from researchers at National Institutes of Health (NIH) and their collaborators revealed a significant genetic risk factor for kidney disease in people from Ghana and Nigeria.
Their study demonstrated that having just one risk variant in a gene known as APOL1 can significantly increase the risk of developing kidney disease. APOL1 is important for the immune system and variants of the gene are linked to increased risk of chronic kidney disease. The study is published in the New England Journal of Medicine and was conducted by researchers from the Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa) Kidney Disease Research Network.
Over 8,000 people from Ghana and Nigeria participated in the study, including nearly 5,000 people with chronic kidney disease of various stages and more than 800 people who had kidney biopsies that confirmed their disease.
The study found that nearly one-third of individuals in these two nations carry APOL1 variants that increase the risk of chronic kidney disease. While these APOL1 variants are seen most often in people of West African descent, other studies have found these variants in people from Europe, Asia, Central and South America.
The researchers also found that having a risk variant in one copy of the APOL1 gene increases the risk of developing chronic kidney disease, contrary to previous studies in the African American population suggesting that both copies of APOL1 needed to contain such variants to increase the overall risk. One risk variant increases the risk of chronic kidney disease by 18%, while two risk variants, one on each copy of APOL1, increases the risk by 25%.
These APOL1 risk variants also drastically increase the likelihood of developing a rare kidney condition called focal segmental glomerulosclerosis, which is scarring of the kidney tissues.
