Calcium oxalate crystals, otherwise known as kidney stones, can cause kidney damage in addition to severe pain.
In the Journal of Clinical Investigation, researchers led by Hans Joachim Anders at the Klinikum der Universität München in Munich, Germany, identified the inflammatory pathways that are activated by kidney stones and characterized the molecular mechanisms that lead to kidney damage in mice.
They found that the protein IL-1β was primarily responsible for inducing damage, suggesting that blocking the activity of this protein might help protect the kidneys of patients with kidney stones.
TITLE: Calcium oxalate crystals induce renal inflammation by NLRP3-mediated IL-1β secretion