ANGPTL3 is involved in kidney injury in high-fat diet-fed mice by suppressing ACTN4 expression

OBJECTIVE: We wanted to explore how angiopoietin-like 3 (ANGPTL3) impact hyperlipidemia-induced renal injury. METHODS: ANGPTL3 knockout mice and wild-type C57 mice were set up in four groups (N = 5) depending on a normal or 60% high-fat diet: wild-type with normal diet (WT), angptl3-/- with normal diet (KO), wild-type + high-fat diet (WT + HF) and angptl3-/- + high-fat diet (KO + HF). The detection time points were the 9th, 13th, 17th and 21st weeks after modeling. Serum lipid and urinary protein levels of mice in each group were detected, and pathological changes in the kidney were analyzed. Moreover, the expression of ANGPTL3, α-actinin-4 (ACTN4), CD2-associated protein (CD2AP) and podocin was tested in the glomerulus by immunohistochemistry (IHC). RESULTS: In the WT + HF group, hyperlipidemia and proteinuria could be observed at the 9th week and were gradually aggravated with time. Compared with WT + HF mice, the levels of serum lipids and proteinuria in KO + HF mice were significantly reduced, and the width of podocyte foot processes (FPs) fusion was also markedly improved. The IHC results suggested that in WT + HF mice, the expression of ANGPTL3 was significantly enhanced. After modeling, ACTN4 expression was markedly weakened in the glomeruli of WT + HF mice. Different to WT mice, ACTN4 expression was not observed obviously change in KO + HF mice. Compared with the normal diet group, the expression of podocin showed a decline in WT mice treated with high-fat diet and showed a significant difference from the 17th week. In addition, podocin expression in KO + HF glomeruli was also found to be weak but not significantly different from that in WT + HF glomeruli at the four time points. The expression of CD2AP showed similar results among the four groups. CONCLUSION: ANGPTL3 could play a role in the mechanism of hyperlipidemia-associated podocyte injury via ACTN4. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12944-022-01700-3.