Hypoxia-Inducible Factors and Diabetic Kidney Disease—How Deep Can We Go?

Diabetes is one of the leading causes of chronic kidney disease (CKD), and multiple underlying mechanisms involved in pathogenesis of diabetic nephropathy (DN) have been described. Although various treatments and diagnosis applications are available, DN remains a clinical and economic burden, considering that about 40% of type 2 diabetes patients will develop nephropathy. In the past years, some research found that hypoxia response and hypoxia-inducible factors (HIFs) play critical roles in the pathogenesis of DN. Hypoxia-inducible factors (HIFs) HIF-1, HIF-2, and HIF-3 are the main mediators of metabolic responses to the state of hypoxia, which seems to be the one of the earliest events in the occurrence and progression of diabetic kidney disease (DKD). The abnormal activity of HIFs seems to be of crucial importance in the pathogenesis of diseases, including nephropathies. Studies using transcriptome analysis confirmed by metabolome analysis revealed that HIF stabilizers (HIF-prolyl hydroxylase inhibitors) are novel therapeutic agents used to treat anemia in CKD patients that not only increase endogenous erythropoietin production, but also could act by counteracting the metabolic alterations in incipient diabetic kidney disease and relieve oxidative stress in the renal tissue. In this review, we present the newest data regarding hypoxia response and HIF involvement in the pathogenesis of diabetic nephropathy and new therapeutic insights, starting from improving kidney oxygen homeostasis.