Figure 5.

Effect of calorie restriction in preventing podocyte stress, podocyte loss, and adhesion formation in 300-g nephrectomized heterozygous AA-4EBP1 rats. (A) Forty percent calorie restriction resulted in loss of about 70 g in weight, whereas ad libitum–fed rats continued to gain weight over the 16-week period of observation. (B) Urine protein-to-creatinine ratio remained at baseline in calorie-restricted rats and increased in ad libitum–fed rats. (C) Representative Masson trichrome–stained sections illustrating the development of adhesions present in ad libitum–fed rats, which were not present in calorie-restricted rats. Original magnification ×110. (D) Quantitation of the adhesions. *P<0.05, as assessed by t test. (E) Both the urine podocin-to-nephrin mRNA ratio as a measure of podocyte stress and the urine podocin-to-aquaporin2 ratio as a measure of the rate of podocyte loss remained at baseline in calorie-restricted rats but increased in ad libitum–fed rats. Data are shown as the mean ± SEM.