Uromodulin promotes immune zonation and inhibits alternative inflammasome-mediated activation of immune-to-collecting duct inflammatory signaling in early acute kidney injury

Uromodulin, a protein made uniquely by the kidney, is protective against acute kidney injury. An integrated transcriptomic and multiplexed spatial protein imaging was used to uncover early cellular and molecular pathophysiological mechanisms following murine kidney ischemia and reperfusion injury (IRI) and better define the role of Uromodulin at the early stage of injury. Six hours following IRI, there was a pan-nephronal transcriptomic response with activation of common pathways but also unique gene expression signatures for each nephron segment. Cell-cell communications and epithelial-immune spatial interactions most prominently involved thick ascending limbs and distal nephron segments with distinct immune zonation in the inner stripe of the outer medulla. Uromodulin deficiency swayed the tubular transcriptomic signatures towards more severe injury and inflammation with altered macrophage communication. Uromodulin deficiency also caused partial loss of immune zonation and a shift towards broader epithelial-immune interactions in the outer stripe and cortex. Uromodulin inhibited activation of the Nlrc4-dependent alternative inflammasome pathway in macrophages, where the production of IL-1{beta} predominantly targets other immune and collecting duct (CD) cells. Indeed, Uromodulin deficiency induced the expression of CD8 in CD cells which acquire a proinflammatory phenotype linked to spatial niches containing immune cells. The presence of CD8+ CD cells was validated in human kidney biopsies. In conclusion, our findings support a role for Uromodulin in spatially confining the immune system around TAL cells in the inner stripe away from the vulnerable outer stripe in early injury. Uromodulin also inhibits the inflammasome-mediated macrophage-epithelial crosstalk that could induce collecting duct cells towards more inflammatory signaling.