**13. Concluding Remarks and Future Directions**

Mitochondria perform several functions, including metabolic pathways and communicating to the rest of the cell to drive its behavior. The TCA cycle occurs in the mitochondrial matrix, and the metabolites that compose it are dependent on each other; hence the excess or lack of the TCA cycle metabolites are regulated by their release from mitochondria or can be replenished from cytosolic precursors.

As we review, TCA cycle metabolites are involved in several kidney functions in health and disease. Moreover, in kidney diseases, there are alterations in the levels of TCA cycle metabolites and in the enzymes involved in their synthesis, which drive cell fate impacting kidney function.

Knowing the role of these metabolites in kidney diseases is of great relevance to understanding the pathophysiology and for their possible application in future therapeutic options and for clinical use as prognosis/diagnosis biomarkers.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, A.P.J.-U.; writing—original draft preparation, A.P.J.-U.; writing—review and editing, E.Y.H.-C., K.J.R.-M. and J.P.-C.; figures preparation, E.Y.H.-C. and A.P.J.-U.; funding acquisition, J.P.-C. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research was funded by the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACYT), grant number A1-S-7495 and by the Dirección General de Asuntos del Personal Académico (DGAPA), grant numbers IN202219 and IN200922.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** Not applicable.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Not applicable.

**Acknowledgments:** A.P.J.-U. is a Ph.D. student from Posgrado en Ciencias Bioquímicas at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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