Miroslav Šašinka, Katarína Furková
Nephronophthisis (NPH) is a group of the autosomal recessive diseases characterized by a chronic tubulointerstitial nephritis what is in children and adolescents the most often terminal renal failure cause. Disease progress to terminal renal failure during the second decade (juvenile form) or before the age of 5 years (infantile form). Juvenile form is characterized with chronic interstitial nephritis and progressive chronic kidney disease (CKD) stadium 5 ended in terminal renal failure. There were identified 12 causative genes mutations (NPHP1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, others) responsible for the juvenile NPH and one gene NPHP2 for the infantile form. Gens coded family of the NPHP proteins – nephrocystins. NPHP gene products are expressed in the primary cilia and therefore is NPH considered as ciliopathy. Some children present with extrarenal symptoms: retinitis pigmentosa (Senior-Loken syndrome), Joubert syndrome, mental retardation, cerebellar ataxia, bone anomalies, or liver fibrosis. Medullary cystic syndrome is an autosomal dominant nephropathy of adults with identical clinical and histologic picture and only rare extrarenal symptoms.