The Kidney as a Metabolic Hub: Interorgan Crosstalk Across the Heart, Gut, and Brain

The kidney is traditionally recognized for filtration, fluid balance, and waste excretion, but it also plays an essential role in systemic metabolic and endocrine homeostasis. Renal function regulates glucose and amino acid metabolism, clearance of circulating metabolites, hormonal signaling, and systemic inflammation.Consequently, kidney dysfunction affects distant organs through uremic toxins, gut-derived metabolites, cytokines, hormones, extracellular vesicles, and neurohormonal pathways. In turn, cardiovascular, intestinal, neurological, and metabolic disturbances feed back to accelerate kidney injury. While research into the heart-kidney, gut-kidney, and brain-kidney axes has expanded rapidly, these pathways are still studied largely in isolation, despite sharing circulating mediators, immune mechanisms, and neural pathways.This Research Topic aims to establish an integrated framework that views the kidney as a metabolic and signaling hub within an interconnected multi-organ network. By bringing together cardiovascular, intestinal, neurological, and renal research, this collection seeks to uncover shared mechanisms, common mediators, and clinically actionable consequences of kidney-centered interorgan crosstalk.We welcome basic, translational, and clinical submissions. Key themes include:• Heart-kidney metabolic crosstalk, cardiorenal syndrome, and shared cardiometabolic dysfunction• Gut-kidney interactions, including microbiota, microbial metabolites, gut barrier integrity, and uremic toxins• Brain-kidney communication, including neuroinflammation, cognitive impairment, autonomic regulation, and neuroendocrine signaling• Emerging axes involving liver-kidney, adipose-kidney, skeletal muscle-kidney, and lung-kidney interactions• Cross-cutting molecular mechanisms, including circulating metabolites, extracellular vesicles, cytokines, and mitochondrial and immune metabolism• Advanced methodologies, including metabolomics, proteomics, lipidomics, microbiomics, single-cell and spatial omics, and clinical cohort phenotyping• Translation, prognosis, and therapy, including biomarker discovery, risk prediction, and novel therapeutic interventionsWe welcome Original Research, Clinical Trials, Reviews, Systematic Reviews, Perspectives, and other article types relevant to mechanistic understanding, biomarkers, prognosis, and therapeutic targeting of kidney-centered interorgan crosstalk. Topic editors: Xunliang Li, Zhen Guo, Channa Zhao Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/87195/the-kidney-as-a-metabolic-hub-interorgan-crosstalk-across-the-heart-gut-and-brain