Abstract #2241

Ji L, Prasad P, Santos E, Li L

Diabetes aggravates renal medullary hypoxia possibly through enhanced regional oxygen consumption. To examine how early such enhanced medullary hypoxia begins, kidneys of control and streptozotoxin induced diabetic rats were investigated by direct regional pO2 and blood flow measurements using invasive fiber optic probes and non-invasive BOLD MRI. Six Wistar Furth rats in each group of control, 2-, 5-, 14- and 28 days after induction of diabetes were tested. Hypoxia was found in renal medulla as early as 2 days following induction of diabetes. Our findings also suggest that the change in renal oxygenation is determined predominantly by increased oxygen consumption.