Patients with albuminuria and CKD frequently have vascular dysfunction but the underlying
mechanisms remain unclear. Because the endothelial surface layer, a meshwork of surface-
bound and loosely adherent glycosaminoglycans and proteoglycans, modulates vascular
function, its loss could contribute to both renal and systemic vascular dysfunction in
proteinuric CKD. Using Munich-Wistar-Fromter (MWF) rats as a model of spontaneous
albuminuric CKD, multiphoton fluorescence imaging and single-vessel physiology …