Pitt Pediatrics congratulates Sunny Sims-Lucas, PhD, for his recent publication in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN). Titled “Dicarboxylic Acid Dietary Supplementation Protects against AKI,” this basic research article focuses on leveraging peroxisomal fatty acid oxidation (FAO) in proximal tubes in order to help recovery following acute kidney injury (AKI). 
Sims-Lucas is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Nephrology, as well as the Director of the Histology Core, and the Associate Vice Chair of Education for Medical Students. More information about his research lab can be found here.
In this research, Sims-Lucas and affiliated researchers looked at methods with which to increase peroxisomal FAO in order to activate renoprotective mechanisms. Currently there is no therapy available that enables this function following AKI. In this research project, biochemical, histologic, genetic, and proteomic analyses were performed on mice that were subjected to either ischemia-reperfusion injury-AKI or cisplatin-AKI models following a control diet or a one enriched with dicarboxylic acids, which are peroxisome-specific FAO substrates.
Ultimately, proteomic analysis demonstrated that peroxisomal FAO was increased within the dicarboxylic acid-enriched diet, and prevented the rise of AKI markers in those corresponding mice exposed to renal injury. This finding indicates that dicarboxylic acid enrichment could be a therapeutic model for preventing AKI through increasing peroxisomal FAO.
Affiliated researchers in this project at the University of Pittsburgh Department of Pediatrics and UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh included Anne Silva Barbosa, Katherine Pfister, PhD, Takuto Chiba, PhD, Victoria Young, Bob Zhang, BA, Sivakama Bharathi, PhD, Alexandra Schmidt, Rebecca Uhlean, Akira Oda, and Eric Goetzman, PhD.
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