Antioxidants Targeting Mitochondria Function in Kidney Diseases

Kidney diseases are a growing health problem worldwide, causing millions of deaths. Acute kidney injury (AKI) commonly evolves into chronic kidney disease (CKD) and fibrosis, which is a feature of CKD predisposing to end-stage renal disease. Thus, treatments that avoid this transition are urgently necessary. Mitochondria are the hub energy house of the renal cells, which provides energy in adenosine triphosphate (ATP) form, commonly obtained from β-oxidation through fatty acids degradation into the mitochondrial matrix. Mitochondria are plastic organelles that constantly change according to the cell's energy requirements. For this, mitochondria carry out biogenesis, fission, fusion, and mitophagy/autophagy, processes highly regulated to maintain mitochondrial bioenergetics and homeostasis. Alterations in one or more of these processes might cause detrimental consequences that affect cell function. In this sense, it is widely accepted that mitochondrial dysfunction associated with oxidative stress plays a crucial role in developing kidney diseases. Therefore, antioxidants that target mitochondria might be an excellent strategy to ameliorate mitochondrial dysfunction, and selecting one or another antioxidant could depend on AKI or CKD requirements. This review focuses on potent antioxidants such as sulforaphane (SFN), N-acetyl cysteine (NAC), resveratrol, curcumin, quercetin, and α-mangostin in the improvement of mitochondrial function in kidney pathologies.