Advances and challenges toward developing kidney organoids for clinical applications

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Developmental Biology
• Regenerative Medicine

Background:

• Kidney organoids offer a powerful platform for studying human kidney development and disease.
• Established protocols exist for generating nephron lineages, but recent advancements focus on the ureteric bud/collecting duct lineage.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review recent progress in kidney organoid generation and disease modeling.
• To highlight advancements in inducing specific kidney cell lineages.
• To discuss challenges and future directions in creating more organotypic kidneys and synthetic kidneys for transplantation.

Main Methods:

• Review of recent scientific literature on kidney organoid generation and applications.
• Analysis of novel protocols for inducing ureteric bud/collecting duct lineages.
• Examination of patient-derived and genome-edited organoid models for hereditary kidney diseases.

Main Results:

• Significant progress has been made in generating kidney organoids, including new methods for inducing the ureteric bud/collecting duct lineage.
• Kidney organoids derived from patients or through genome editing are effectively modeling hereditary kidney diseases, notably polycystic kidney disease.
• The development of more organotypic and potentially transplantable kidneys is becoming increasingly feasible.

Conclusions:

• Kidney organoid technology has rapidly advanced, enabling sophisticated modeling of kidney development and hereditary diseases.
• Future research should focus on overcoming challenges in generating more complex organoids and achieving the goal of synthetic, transplantable kidneys.
• Continued innovation in generating diverse kidney cell lineages is crucial for comprehensive disease modeling and therapeutic development.