Overview
- Researchers at UVA Health and Mount Sinai report that kidney-derived circulating extracellular vesicles in CKD carry miRNA that is toxic to heart tissue.
- In mouse models, blocking these vesicles improved cardiac function and reduced signs of heart failure.
- Analyses of human plasma found harmful extracellular vesicles in patients with chronic kidney disease but not in healthy volunteers.
- The team says the results could enable blood tests to identify high-risk patients and therapies designed to neutralize or block pathogenic vesicles, pending further validation.
- The study, published in Circulation (Li et al., 2026), notes CKD affects about 35 million Americans and is common in people with diabetes or hypertension.