# Kidney Transplant Outcomes and APOL1

> **NIH NIH U01** · JOSLIN DIABETES CENTER · 2020 · $346,141

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
Chronic kidney disease (CKD) affects >10% of the adult US population, costs tens of billions of dollars
annually, and can lead to progressive kidney failure leading to need for renal replacement therapy. Successful
kidney transplant reverses many of the chronic abnormalities in CKD and has shown to improve not only quality
of life but also patient survival compared to renal replacement therapy. It is vital to identify strategies that
improve and prolong organ function. We have established a multidisciplinary investigative team and outline
plans for a multicenter transplant prospective recruiting clinical center for the RFA-DK-16-025 – “APOL1 Long-
term Kidney Transplantation Outcomes Network (APOLLO) Clinical Centers”, to assess the outcome of kidney
transplant recipients and living donors in relation to the African-ancestry APOL1 alleles. APOL1 risk alleles
have been shown to explain a large part of the increased risk of African Americans compared to non-African
American for end-stage renal disease. However, the association of APOL1 alleles with kidney transplant
outcomes such as deterioration of kidney function, acute rejection, and allograft loss as well as living donor
health is unclear. We propose to assess if the presence of APOL1 donor risk alleles is associated with kidney
transplant outcomes (rate of change of kidney function, rates of acute rejection and graft failure defined as re-
transplantation, initiation of dialysis or GFR < 15 ml/min/1.73m2) (Aim 1); to determine if acute rejection, viral
infections and other genetic factors in the donor-recipient pair alters the impact of donor APOL1 risk alleles with
kidney transplant outcomes (Aim 2); and determine the impact of kidney donation in African American donors
with APOL1 risk alleles with up to 3.5 years of longitudinal follow-up (Aim 3). We are committed to collaborative
protocol development, sharing best practices, and team science to achieve the APOLLO's objectives. The
APOLLO network will also establish a high quality resource (data and specimen repository of blood, urine,
DNA, and RNA) for future basic, clinical and translational research in transplantation. The proposed research
plan will have future diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic implications. In addition, it could have policy
implications as kidneys may need to be allocated in the future taking into account the donor APOL1 genotype.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9977155
- **Project number:** 5U01DK116102-04
- **Recipient organization:** JOSLIN DIABETES CENTER
- **Principal Investigator:** Sylvia E Rosas
- **Activity code:** U01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $346,141
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2017-09-25 → 2023-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9977155

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9977155, Kidney Transplant Outcomes and APOL1 (5U01DK116102-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9977155. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*