Understanding the aristolochic acid toxicities in rat kidneys with regulatory networks

The natural products containing aristolochic acid (AA) have been widely used for acne, gastritis and so on. Recently, it is becoming accepted that AA may be responsible for acute and chronic renal failures as the side effects of Chinese herbs. However, it is unclear what happens in the cells after the AA treatment. In this study, the authors built a gene regulatory network as well as a microRNA-gene regulatory network to investigate the molecular dynamics induced by AA from a systematic perspective. With the regulatory networks, they detected some important pathways and biological processes that were affected by AA treatment, which can help explain the nephrotoxicity and carcinogenicity of AA. They found some important regulators and genes responding to AA treatment, and these genes have been reported to be related to the kidney functions, indicating their important roles in the toxicity of AA.