Chemical carcinogens are substances which induce malignant tumours, increase their incidence or decrease the time taken for tumour formation. Often, exposure to chemical carcinogens results in tissue specific patterns of tumorigenicity. The very same anatomical, biochemical and physiological specialisations which permit the kidney to perform its vital roles in maintaining tissue homeostasis may in fact increase the risk of carcinogen exposure and contribute to the organ specific carcinogenicity observed with numerous kidney carcinogens. This review will address the numerous mechanisms which play a role in the concentration, bioactivation, and uptake of substances from both the urine and blood which significantly increase the risk of cancer in the kidney.

This review focuses on the role of OMICs technologies, concentrating in particular on proteomics, in biomarker discovery in chronic allograft injury (CAI). CAI is the second most prevalent cause of allograft dysfunction and loss in the first decade post-transplantation, after death with functioning graft (DWFG). The term CAI, sometimes referred to as chronic allograft nephropathy (CAN), describes the deterioration of renal allograft function and structure as a result of immunological processes (chronic antibody-mediated rejection), and other non-immunological factors such as calcineurin inhibitor (CNI) induced nephrotoxicity, hypertension and infection. Current methods for assessing allograft function are costly, insensitive and invasive; traditional kidney function measurements such as serum creatinine and glomerular filtration rate (GFR) display poor predictive abilities, while the current “gold-standard” involving histological diagnosis with a renal biopsy presents its own inherent risks to the overall health of the allograft. As early as two years post-transplantation, protocol biopsies have shown more than 50% of allograft recipients have mild CAN; ten years post-transplantation more than 50% of the allograft recipients have progressed to severe CAN which is associated with diminishing graft function. Thus, there is a growing medical requirement for minimally invasive biomarkers capable of identifying the early stages of the disease which would allow for timely intervention. Proteomics involves the study of the expression, localization, function and interaction of the proteome. Proteomic technologies may be powerful tools used to identify novel biomarkers which would predict CAI in susceptible individuals. In this paper we will review the use of proteomics in the elucidation of novel predictive biomarkers of CAI in clinical, animal and in vitro studies.

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