RESEARCH COMMUNICATIONS OF THE 28th ECVIM-CA CONGRESS

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a common, slowly progressive and irreversible disorder in domestic cats. Feline CKD is characterized histologically by tubulointerstitial inflammation and fibrosis; however, the molecular pathways associated with its progression have not been thoroughly characterized. Our group has recently described a model of feline CKD that utilizes unilateral in vivo ischemia to induce renal changes mimicking those of naturally occurring disease. The objective of this study was to characterize the renal transcriptome in an ischemic model of feline CKD using RNA sequencing. We hypothesized that 1) tissues from cats with experimental CKD would display increased genetic expression of molecular pathways associated with inflammation and fibrosis, and that 2) in cats having undergone unilateral renal ischemia, tissues from the contralateral (i.e., non‐ischemic) kidney would show differential genetic expression when compared to tissues from control cats.