A new research programme at the University of Oxford is investigating whether an existing class of kidney medicines could provide a future treatment for BK virus in kidney transplant patients.
Dr Peter Wing has received a £100,000 Sabita Dindayal Award PhD studentship from Kidney Research UK to study how BK virus responds to low oxygen levels in kidney cells. The project will examine why the virus grows under these conditions and test whether HIF inhibitors can reduce its activity.
BK virus is common and is usually acquired in childhood. In most people it causes few problems and can remain inactive in the kidneys. The risk changes after a kidney transplant because patients need immunosuppressant drugs to prevent their immune system from rejecting the donated organ. Those drugs weaken the immune response and can allow BK virus to reactivate. This creates a significant treatment problem because there is currently no effective therapy for the infection other than reducing immunosuppression.
Allowing the immune system to recover can help it fight the virus, but it can also increase the risk of the transplanted kidney being attacked and rejected. The Oxford research is targeting that treatment gap by looking for another way to control the virus.
The project centres on hypoxia, or low oxygen levels. Hypoxia occurs in kidney disease, and previous work by Dr Wing and his team has indicated that it may create conditions in which BK virus can thrive and replicate.
Researchers will use kidney organoids, miniature laboratory-grown models of kidneys, to monitor the virus under low-oxygen conditions. They will then use spatial transcriptomics to identify which genes are active and determine whether specific genes are helping to drive viral replication. That work is intended to identify the biological mechanisms behind BK virus growth rather than simply observe its behaviour. Pinpointing the genes and pathways involved could provide clearer targets for future treatment development.
The team will also test HIF inhibitors. These drugs are used to treat anaemia in patients with chronic kidney disease, and the researchers have previously observed that they can stop BK virus growing under low-oxygen conditions.
The next step is to investigate that effect in more detail and determine whether HIF inhibitors could have potential as a future BK virus treatment.
Verici Dx Plc (LON:VRCI) is developing a complementary suite of proprietary, leading-edge tests forming a kidney transplant diagnostics platform for personalised patient and organ response risk to assist clinicians in medical management for improved patient outcomes.
