Toward multilevel therapeutic targeting of medial arterial calcification in chronic kidney disease.

Abstract

Despite decades of investigation, effective therapies for medial arterial calcification in chronic kidney disease remain lacking. Emerging therapeutic targets increasingly extend beyond systemic drivers of calcification and now seek to address direct vascular cellular mechanisms and the calcium-phosphate mineralization itself. In this issue, Öztürk et al. describe platelet-derived growth factor receptor β activation as a potent mediator of chronic kidney disease-induced vascular smooth muscle cell osteogenic differentiation and calcification, supporting vascular cell targeting as an emerging therapeutic axis in chronic kidney disease-associated medial arterial calcification.