New Frontiers in Diagnosis and Prevention of Acute Kidney Injury (AKI): The Role of Dendritic Cells and Innovative High-Throughput Techniques

Kidney diseases, including acute kidney injury (AKI) and chronic kidney disease (CKD), represent a general, public health urgency, causing a heavy burden to global health care systems. Moreover, AKI is a frequent complication of hospitalization, and it is associated with short-term morbidity and mortality rate greater than 50%, as a result of its relationship with other severe complications. Furthermore, multiple pathophysiologic processes are involved in AKI, such as cellular death, apoptosis, mesenchymal transition, cellular infiltration, inflammation, cytokines release, coagulation, and complement activation. Since increasing evidence highlighted the central role of the immune system in AKI pathophysiology, several efforts have been made to delineate the link between this disease and the different population of immune cells. This narrative review aims to describe the role played by dendritic cells (DCs) in AKI, with a special focus on recent findings suggesting DCs suppression as a promising strategy to prevent AKI negative side effects and ameliorate renal injury and dysfunction. Furthermore, we briefly summarize the main characteristics of innovative high-throughput techniques, including as genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics in the context of AKI.