Abstract:

Genetic factors play an important role in many kidney diseases such as polycystic kidney disease, Alport syndrome, Fabry disease, IgA nephropathy, diabetic nephropathy, lupus nephritis, etc. In the past few decades, a great deal of exploration had been done on these common genetic variants of kidney diseases. Although the pathogenesis of Alport syndrome, Fabry disease and other single-gene disease are clear with linkage analysis and positional cloning, the progress of complexity of clinical disease including IgA nephropathy, diabetic nephropathy, and so on is very slow on genetic research. The advance of genome-wide association study (GWAS) provides an important approach for studying susceptive genes of these diseases．In this article, the applications of GWAS in kidney diseases and their influence effects have been reviewed and discussed.