Stem Cells in Kidney Regeneration

Shinya      Yokote; Takashi      Yokoo

Abstract

Currently many efforts are being made to apply regenerative medicine to kidney diseases using several types of stem/progenitor cells, such as mesenchymal stem cells, renal stem/progenitor cells, embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells. Stem cells have the ability to repair injured organs and ameliorate damaged function. The strategy for kidney tissue repair is the recruitment of stem cells and soluble reparative factors to the kidney to elicit tissue repair and the induction of dedifferentiation of resident renal cells. On the other hand, where renal structure is totally disrupted, absolute kidney organ regeneration is needed to rebuild a whole functional kidney. In this review, we describe current advances in stem cell research for kidney tissue repair and de novo organ regeneration.

Keywords: Embryo, embryonic stem cell, induced pluripotent stem cell, kidney regeneration, mesenchymal stem cell, metanephros, renal progenitor cell

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