The role of pro-inflammatory cytokines in diabetic nephropathy in pregnant women with type 1 diabetes mellitus

Diabetic nephropathy is one of the most frequent and unfavorable complications of pregnancy in terms of prognosis in patients with diabetes mellitus. The combination of pregnancy and uncompensated diabetes with such complications as diabetic nephropathy, diabetic retinopathy, diabetic neuropathy, leads to overproduction of pro-inflammatory cytokines, thromboses and ischemic necroses of the fetoplacental tissues, and low blood level of immunosuppressive cytokines increases the severity of the disease. This mechanism may be one of the reasons of the spontaneous abortion and pregnancy loss in early pregnancy term in women with diabetes. For a long time the leading role in diabetic nephropathy formation was acknowledged for hyperglycemia, dyslipidemia, oxidative stress, and arterial and renal intraglomerular hypertension. Diabetic nephropathy was recognized as non-immune and non-inflammatory process. Currently diabetic nephropathy is considered as a series of inflammatory reactions involving inflammatory cytokines and chemokines, consisting in the migration of monocytes or macrophages to the kidneys and glomerular and interstitial fibrosis development. Recent studies prove the role of immune-inflammatory reactions in diabetic kidney damage development and confirm an imbalance of the collagen exchange regulating factors, even at the stage of reversible renal dysfunction - microalbuminuria. The close relationship found between hyperglycemia, overproduction of growth factors and nephrosclerosis development in diabetes mellitus. The detection of pro-inflammatory cytokines and fibrogenic growth factors in the urine of patients with diabetes, especially in pregnant women with diabetes, can be used to prompt diagnosis and evaluation of processes occurring in the kidneys, to study the degree of sclerosis, and as a consequence, to predict kidney functional disorders development. Keywords: diabetes mellitus, pregnancy, diabetic nephropathy, cytokines, growth factors.