UC Davis

Due to their common pathogenesis and parallel proliferative signaling pathways, the cystic diseases have been recently studied in the context of cancer biology. The present study continues this paradigm by identifying signal transducer and activator of transcription (STAT5) and growth hormone (GH) as potentially modifiable pathways in polycystic kidney disease. GH, which is a potent activator of STAT5, has the additional possibility of being a biomarker, as well as providing a potential mechanism of action of somatostatin analogs in clinical trials.