Asynchronous mixing of kidney progenitor cells potentiates nephrogenesis in organoids
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
5-11-2020
Institution/Department
MaineHealth Institute for Research
Journal Title
Communications biology
MeSH Headings
Animals; Cell Differentiation; Cell Line; Female; Humans; Kidney (growth & development); Male; Mice; Organogenesis (physiology); Organoids (growth & development); Pluripotent Stem Cells (transplantation)
Abstract
A fundamental challenge in emulating kidney tissue formation through directed differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells is that kidney development is iterative, and to reproduce the asynchronous mix of differentiation states found in the fetal kidney we combined cells differentiated at different times in the same organoid. Asynchronous mixing promoted nephrogenesis, and heterochronic organoids were well vascularized when engrafted under the kidney capsule. Micro-CT and injection of a circulating vascular marker demonstrated that engrafted kidney tissue was connected to the systemic circulation by 2 weeks after engraftment. Proximal tubule glucose uptake was confirmed, but despite these promising measures of graft function, overgrowth of stromal cells prevented long-term study. We propose that this is a technical feature of the engraftment procedure rather than a specific shortcoming of the directed differentiation because kidney organoids derived from primary cells and whole embryonic kidneys develop similar stromal overgrowth when engrafted under the kidney capsule.
First Page
231
Recommended Citation
Kumar Gupta A, Sarkar P, Wertheim JA, Pan X, Carroll TJ, Oxburgh L. Asynchronous mixing of kidney progenitor cells potentiates nephrogenesis in organoids. Commun Biol. 2020;3(1):231. Published 2020 May 11. doi:10.1038/s42003-020-0948-7