For the first time, primitive human kidneys have been created in a laboratory dish, by using stem cells, which could be a key step towards the Holy Grail of fully-functional, lab-made transplant organs. The tissue is not a viable organ, but may be useful for other purposes such as replacing animals in drug toxicity tests, the team said.
The researchers from Australia and the Netherlands grew their "kidney-like structure" from induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells -- adult cells reprogrammed into a neutral state from which they can be coaxed to develop into other cell types. But it is a complicated task. Until a few years ago, when iPS cells were created, the only way to obtain stem cells was to harvest them from human embryos. This was controversial as it required the destruction of the embryo.
The first part of this chain has proved most challenging, especially in organs composed of a multitude of different cell types. The kidney, for example, has more than 20. In the new study, published in the journal Nature, the team managed to transform iPS cells into two different adult cell types. The resulting organoids sported different tissue types and were "similar" to the kidney of a human embryo, the researchers reported. But the organoids may fulfil a completely different medical need -- testing the safety for humans of new drugs.
The work represented "an important step towards building stem-cell-derived kidneys," University of Edinburgh anatomy expert Jamie Davies wrote in a comment, also published by Nature.
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