Figure 3.

The innate immune response in renal IR: the fine balance between adaptive repair and chronic degeneration. In this figure we describe the 2 possible scenarios that may occur in the kidney following AKI. The fist scenario involves a moderate injury resolved by a balanced and timely activation of the innate immune response, most likely associated with a low and transient senescence burden, resulting in adaptive tubular repair and kidney regeneration. In the second scenario we envision that either a low-grade chronic inflammation (possibly related to an aging phenotype and the associated high senescent burden) or a constant PRRs blockade (to avoid excessive inflammation), contribute to phenotypic changes in TECs (as described in Figure 1) and maladaptive tubular repair.