Kidney Ischemia and Reperfusion Injury – Field of Glory or Warterloo for Erythropoietin?

Abstract

When asking clinicians about their knowledge about Erythropoietin (EPO) most of
them would say that it increases Red Blood Cell (RBC) count and can therefore be used to
treat anemia, is produced in the kidneys and can be misused as doping agent in sports. The
way to reach this today’s common knowledge was long and hard. In the year 1667 by giving a
lambs blood to an anemic patient and the lucky outcome that the patient felt better afterwards,
it became clear that blood could heal.1
Over two centuries later in a rabbit experimental set-up
where plasma was transduced between an anemic and a healthy animal it could be seen that
the red blood cell count increased in the anemic one. This gave birth to the thesis that a humeral factor is responsible and was named hemopoietin.2
Seventy years later this mysterious
substance was found by Goldwasser in patients´ urine3
and was later on cloned by a colleague
of him4 what marked the beginning of EPOs therapeutic career in treating anemia that lasts on
until today.