Science’s new weapon against kidney disease: tiny lab-grown organoids
Researchers from the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California have made a major breakthrough in creating tissues that mirror parts of the kidney
Up yours, kidney disease! That’s what we imagine researchers from the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California bellowed after successfully growing parts of a kidney in the lab – a move that could lead to new patient treatments.
Using stem cells, the team was able to create rudimentary cell structures, known as organoids, that mimic some functions
of the real organ. 5peciƂcally, the new
organoids resemble the collecting duct system that concentrates and transports
urine, maintaining the body’s ƃuid and
pH balance.
With such an accurate model of the kidney, researchers could use it to screen potential therapeutic drugs.
Furthermore, the organoids can be genetically engineered to harbour mutations that cause disease, providing scientists with a better idea of how to tackle such illnesses.
In fact, the team behind the study has already tried this out, manipulating genes to create an organoid model that mirrors a condition known as CAKUT (congenital anomalies of the kidney and urinary tract).
“Our progress in creating new types of kidney organoids provides powerful tools for not only understanding development and disease, but also
Ƃnding new treatments and regenerative
approaches for patients,” explained Prof Zhongwei Li, one of the scientists behind the breakthrough.
As outlined in the journal Nature Communications, the tiny kidney models were made by studying animal and human UBPCs (ureteric bud progenitor cells), which play a key role in early kidney development. From this, researchers were able to identify a “cocktail of molecules” that bound together to create organoids.
The development is a major stepping stone to creating a full synthetic organ. The team is already using similar methods to build models of other kidney parts, such as nephrons (the
Ƃltering units of the kidney , which are
being grown using mice UBPCs.
In recent months, other groups of scientists have been able to produce organoid models of the heart, tear ducts, and even human, gorilla and chimpanzee brains.