Proteomics and glomerulonephritis: A complementary approach in renal pathology for the identification of chronic kidney disease related markers.

Glomerulonephritis (GN) is one of the most common origins of chronic kidney disease and its careful evaluation is crucial for prognostic and therapeutic purposes, with the renal biopsy still playing a central role for the diagnosis. However, due to its invasiveness, it is not devoid of complications and many investigations have focused on identifying biomarkers for chronic kidney diseases using less-invasive and easy-to-collect samples, such as urine and blood. In this context, proteomics has played a crucial role in determining the molecular changes related to disease progression and early pathological glomerular modifications. Here, we report a review of selected literature for each GN, based on selected works published in the last 10 years, showing how these approaches have generated clinically relevant findings in the study of glomerulonephritis. We also describe several proteomic strategies, highlighting their technical advantages and limitations, future perspectives for proteomic applications in the study of GNs, and their possible application in routine practice.