– STRI has confirmed the differentiation of podocytes from nEPS.
– This discovery could enable STRI to move a step closer to making mini kidney using 3D podocyte spheroid for research of organoid.

Kidney Disease program

Kidney diseases are currently a global public health problem, with an incidence that has reached epidemic proportions and continues to rise world wide. These trends correlate with the global rise in the aged population and the increasing prevalence of conditions that cause renal complications, namely cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and diabetes. Research in regenerative medicine, with the ultimate aim of generating functional replacement kidney tissue, offers the potential for new therapeutic strategies to treat kidney disease.

We have tried to differentiate kidney cells that have a rapid, efficient, and highly reproducible system to induce intermediate mesoderm cells from nEPS under precise, chemically defined, monolayer and 3D spheroid culture conditions.
We can make 3D spheroids of nEPS and then induce mesodermal cells for podocyte differentiation. In a mature differentiated state, human podocytes express proteins such as WT1, nephrin, synaptopodin, and podocin.
The nEPS can be differentiated into podocyte cells and nEPS-derived podocyte cells can expressnephrin protein.

The progression of glomerular disorders leading to fibrosis and loss of function is dependent on the severity of podocyte injury and the capacity for tissue regeneration and podocyte replacement.
We should develop nEPS to nephron and renal tubule forming, which is a core structure in kidney tissue, and test differentiation into kidney precursor cells.
The establishment of this system will facilitate and improve the direct differentiation of nEPS into cells of the kidney lineage for the purposes of bioengineering kidney tissue and nEPS cell disease modeling.