Leslie Bruggeman, PhD
Staff
Lerner Research Institute,
9500 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 44195
Areas of Interest
- Kidney disease
- HIV-associated nephropathy
- Preeclampsia
- Innate immune functions of APOL1
- Podocyte biology and kidney development
- Basement membranes and extracellular matrix biology
Lab discoveries
- HIV infection of the kidney as a cause of HIV-associated nephropathy (Bruggeman JCI 1997; Bruggeman J. Am. Soc. Nephrol. 2000; Marras Nat. Med. 2002)
- Genetic polymorphisms in APOL1 contribute risk for preeclampsia (Bruggeman J. Am. Soc. Nephrol. 2016; Miller BMC Med. Genet. 2020)
Collaborations
At CCF:
- Aaron Miller (CVMS) – role of viral infections and microbiome in kidney disease pathogenesis
- Changjin Hong/Tae Hyun Hwang (QHS) – novel viral causes for idiopathic kidney diseases
- Oliver Wessely (CVMS) – podocyte development and differentiation
- Andrei Ivanov (I&I) – podocyte cell junction and cell adhesion pathogenic responses
At CWRU:
- Robert Kalayjian (Infectious Diseases) – HIV-associated kidney diseases
- Scott Williams (Genetics and Genome Sciences) – Disease risk and population genetics
- Raymond Redline (Pathology) – Placental pathology in preeclampsia
How could these discoveries help patients?
Identifying potential infectious causes for idiopathic kidney diseases could open new diagnostic, prevention and treatment strategies. And by understanding the role of genetic variations that predispose patients to preeclampsia, new discoveries could lead to genetic testing to identify at-risk mothers.
- Genetic polymorphisms in APOL1 contribute risk for preeclampsia (Bruggeman J. Am. Soc. Nephrol. 2016; Miller BMC Med. Genet. 2020)
- Viral infections in kidney disease pathogenesis (Bruggeman Adv Chronic Kidney Dis. 2019; Lucas Clin Infect. Dis. 2014)
- APOL1 polymorphisms in chronic kidney disease pathogenesis (Bruggman PLoS One 2019; O’Toole J. Am. Soc. Nephrol 2018; Madhavan JCI Insight 2017; Bruggeman J. Am. Soc. Nephrol. 2014)
- Podocyte development and biology (Bruggeman Dev. Dyn. 2007; Bruggeman Cell. Mol. Bioeng. 2012; Wu Physiol Reports 2017; Zhao JBC 2017; Embry J. Am. Soc. Nephrol. 2018)
- HIV infection of the kidney as a cause of HIV-associated nephropathy (Bruggeman JCI 1997; Bruggeman J. Am. Soc. Nephrol. 2000; Marras Nat. Med. 2002)
NIH Grant to Advance the Study of Chronic Kidney Disease in African Americans
Drs. Bruggeman, Sedor and O’Toole will investigate the pathogenic mechanisms of chronic kidney disease to develop greater understanding of genetic susceptibility and develop new treatment strategies.
A Possible Genetic Cause for Racial Disparities in Preeclampsia
Dr. Bruggeman shows in a new study that genetic variants to the APOL1 gene are associated with increased risk for pregnancy-induced hypertension in African American women.
Loss-of-Function APOL1 Variants and Environmental Stress Together May Drive Chronic Kidney Disease
By studying a model of HIV-associated nephropathy, a group of kidney disease researchers and clinicians discovered that in patients with the APOL1 risk gene, the presence of an environmental stressor, like a virus, can trigger cell changes that lead to chronic kidney diseases.
