Animal Models of Kidney Disease

Kidney disease is an important human pathology with a wide range of manifestations. Diseases of the kidney may be rapid in onset, cause severe organ dysfunction, and then resolve quickly to complete or incomplete recovery. These forms of kidney disease are collectively referred in this work as acute kidney injury, and result from a variety of causes. Generally these causes can be characterized as prerenal, intrinsic, or postrenal. We examine various animal models of acute kidney injury in this context and describe their pathophysiological features, as well as their relevance to human disease. Kidney diseases may also develop over longer periods of time and produce permanent damage to the organ that cannot be recovered. In general, we refer to these forms of kidney disease as chronic kidney diseases, and present animal models across their range, including hypertensive, diabetic, and glomerular diseases. We also examine animal models of autoimmune and hereditary kidney diseases. In all cases, we attempt to accurately describe the model and some of its variants, as well as their relevance to human disease.