# Palmitoylation in Renal Physiology and Pathology

**Authors:** Jingru Ma, Zhen Zhang, Jiaqi Guo, Hu Cai, Jian Yao, Dahai Yang, Huiyuan Zhu, Haijing Liu, Changhe Wang, Hongbo Xu

PMC · DOI: 10.3390/biom16030473 · Biomolecules · 2026-03-22

## TL;DR

This review explores how palmitoylation, a protein modification, affects kidney function and disease, highlighting its role and detection methods.

## Contribution

The paper provides a comprehensive review of palmitoylation's role in kidney physiology and pathology, including enzymes, pathways, and detection techniques.

## Key findings

- Palmitoylation regulates protein localization and stability in the kidney.
- Insufficient understanding of palmitoylation pathways in the kidney remains.
- Detection techniques for palmitoylation are summarized for future research.

## Abstract

Palmitoylation is a critical post-translational modification that involves the covalent binding of palmitic acid to cysteine residues within proteins. It is widely recognized that palmitoylation plays a significant role in regulating protein membrane localization, stability, and interactions. The kidney plays a key role in maintaining fluid homeostasis and excreting metabolic waste, and its normal function relies on the precise regulation of protein function. Emerging evidence reveals the crucial role of palmitoylation in renal physiological and pathological processes. However, the intricate pathways and molecular regulators in the kidney that are involved in palmitoylation remain insufficiently elucidated. This review summarizes the role and possible underlying physiological and pathological mechanism of palmitoylation in the kidney, including enzymes and inhibitors that regulate palmitoylation, the signaling pathways involved, target proteins involved in palmitoylation, and specific modification sites. Moreover, we focus on detection techniques and corresponding research strategies for palmitoylation. This review can also serve as a practical reference to improve the understanding of palmitoylation and the treatment of kidney-related diseases.

## Full-text entities

- **Diseases:** kidney-related diseases (MESH:D007674)
- **Chemicals:** cysteine (MESH:D003545), palmitic acid (MESH:D019308)

## Full text

_Full body text omitted from this summary view._ Fetch the complete paper as Markdown: https://tomesphere.com/paper/PMC13024260/full.md

## Figures

7 figures with captions in the complete paper: https://tomesphere.com/paper/PMC13024260/full.md

## References

102 references — full list in the complete paper: https://tomesphere.com/paper/PMC13024260/full.md

---
Source: https://tomesphere.com/paper/PMC13024260