A key gene in Drosophila eye development provides protection for tubules and glomeruli upon injury

Dachshund homolog 1 (DACH1) is highly expressed in both the developing kidney, where it has a role in kidney development, and in the adult kidney, where we know very little about its function. Recently, 2 groups independently reported that DACH1 protects podocytes 1 Doke T. Huang S. Qiu C. et al. Transcriptome-wide association analysis identifies DACH1 as a kidney disease risk gene that contributes to fibrosis. J Clin Invest. 2021; 131e141801 Crossref Scopus (33) Google Scholar and tubules 2 Cao A. Li J. Asadi M. et al. DACH1 protects podocytes from experimental diabetic injury and modulates PTIP-H3K4Me3 activity. J Clin Invest. 2021; 131e141279 Crossref Scopus (15) Google Scholar from experimental injury and provided promising evidence that their findings may be relevant to human chronic kidney disease.