SCI Rep: scientists have successfully isolated kidney stem cells from urine. In the future, they may develop new therapies for various kidney diseases

February 7, 2020 / biool / -- recently, a research report published in the international journal scientific reports, scientists from the University of Dusseldorf and other institutions have developed a new method through research, which can repeatedly isolate and identify kidney stem cells and urine derived kidney progenitors (udrpcs, urines) from different age, gender and race donors derived renal progenitor cells)。 Kidney plays a variety of key functions, such as maintaining the body's liquid level balance, filtering waste from food, drugs and toxic substances, and regulating blood pressure Photo source: the prevalence of kidney related diseases in Heinrich Heine University Duesseldorf is increasing all over the world About 19% - 26% of acute kidney injury (AKI) is induced by nephrotoxic drugs The acute kidney injury will eventually progress to chronic kidney disease (CKD) and increase the risk of death, diabetes, systemic hypertension And glomerulopathy are the main causes of CKD CKD is a global health and economic burden, and also an independent risk factor of inducing cardiovascular disease Due to the lack of organ donors, stem cell-based therapy is considered as an alternative method for the treatment of kidney related diseases Up to now, researchers have established a variety of adult stem cells using bone marrow, cord blood and amniotic fluid Sources, although these sources have a variety of stem cells with regenerative potential, their use value is very limited Cord blood and amniotic fluid can only be obtained before and at birth, while bone marrow requires invasive steps, which is often related to the risk and pain of patients, and kidney biopsy is used to produce human kidney cells for research About 2000-7000 cells are excreted from the kidney into the urine every day Although many laboratory studies have shown that urine is another source of kidney stem cells, so far, researchers have not conducted a comprehensive analysis of these cells In this study, the researchers isolated udrpcs from 10 individuals of different ages and genders They found that these cells can express the typical markers seen in bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), in addition, they can also express kidney stem cell markers Six2, cited1, WT1, CD24 and CD106; udrpcs can differentiate into various cell types in kidney, including proximal, distal tubules and podocytes What we can't imagine is that these valuable cells can be isolated from urine We can also compare udrpcs with all the genes expressed in cells derived from kidney living tissue to confirm the characteristics and sources of renal podocytes, said researcher WASCO wruck It is worth noting that udrpcs can be assembled and reprogrammed as amniotic fluid derived stem cells (AFCS), in addition, they can be easily and effectively reprogrammed to induce pluripotent stem cells Researchers say that more than 850 million people are suffering from kidney disease, so researchers need to develop new alternative therapies to overcome the limitations of current therapies, such as organ transplantation and kidney dialysis In the future, researchers will use transplantable kidney stem cells to treat kidney disease, and human udrpcs may also be used as kidney stem cells The selection of the source promotes the research of nephrogenesis, nephrotoxicity, the establishment of disease model and the development of new drugs Original sources: Rahman, M.S., wruck, W., spitzhurn, L et al The FGF, TGF β and Wnt axis modular self renewal of human Six2 + urine derived internal promoter cells SCI rep 10, 739 (2020) Doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-57723-2