ANIMAL MODEL OF ACUTE KIDNEY INJURY

We used C57BL/6J wild-type mice and transgenic mice overexpressing suPAR in an animal model of contrast-induced nephropathy to study the effect of suPAR on kidney function.^12,17 The median suPAR level in the suPAR-transgenic mice at 10 weeks of age was 210 ng per milliliter (interquartile range, 160 to 256). We injected iohexol intraperitoneally in suPAR-transgenic mice (20 mice, 9 of which were male) and in wild-type controls (16 mice, 8 of which were male) following published protocols.³¹ The mice were also randomly assigned to receive an intraperitoneal injection of either urokinase plasminogen activator receptor (uPAR)–blocking monoclonal antibody or the same concentration of IgG isotype. Serum creatinine and kidney histologic tests were used to assess the severity of acute kidney injury. Experimental details are provided in the Supplementary Appendix.^14,16,32,33 The study was approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of Rush University in Chicago.