scholarly journals Renal stem cells: fact or science fiction?

2012 ◽  
Vol 444 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristen K. McCampbell ◽  
Rebecca A. Wingert

The kidney is widely regarded as an organ without regenerative abilities. However, in recent years this dogma has been challenged on the basis of observations of kidney recovery following acute injury, and the identification of renal populations that demonstrate stem cell characteristics in various species. It is currently speculated that the human kidney can regenerate in some contexts, but the mechanisms of renal regeneration remain poorly understood. Numerous controversies surround the potency, behaviour and origins of the cell types that are proposed to perform kidney regeneration. The present review explores the current understanding of renal stem cells and kidney regeneration events, and examines the future challenges in using these insights to create new clinical treatments for kidney disease.

Author(s):  
Prithiv K R Kumar

Renal failure is a major health problem. The mortality rate remain high despite of several therapies. The most complex of the renal issues are solved through stem cells. In this review, different mechanism for cure of chronic kidney injury along with cell engraftment incorporated into renal structures will be analysed. Paracrine activities of embryonic or induced Pluripotent stem cells are explored on the basis of stem cell-induced kidney regeneration. Several experiments have been conducted to advance stem cells to ensure the restoration of renal functions. More vigour and organised protocols for delivering stem cells is a possibility for advancement in treatment of renal disease. Also there is a need for pressing therapies to replicate the tissue remodelling and cellular repair processes suitable for renal organs. Stem cells are the undifferentiated cells that have the ability to multiply into several cell types. In vivo experiments on animal’s stem cells have shown significant improvements in the renal regeneration and functions of organs. Nevertheless more studies show several improvements in the kidney repair due to stem cell regeneration.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 666
Author(s):  
Toshio Takahashi

Stem cells have extensive proliferative potential and the ability to differentiate into one or more mature cell types. The mechanisms by which stem cells accomplish self-renewal provide fundamental insight into the origin and design of multicellular organisms. These pathways allow the repair of damage and extend organismal life beyond that of component cells, and they probably preceded the evolution of complex metazoans. Understanding the true nature of stem cells can only come from discovering how they are regulated. The concept that stem cells are controlled by particular microenvironments, also known as niches, has been widely accepted. Technical advances now allow characterization of the zones that maintain and control stem cell activity in several organs, including the brain, skin, and gut. Cholinergic neurons release acetylcholine (ACh) that mediates chemical transmission via ACh receptors such as nicotinic and muscarinic receptors. Although the cholinergic system is composed of organized nerve cells, the system is also involved in mammalian non-neuronal cells, including stem cells, embryonic stem cells, epithelial cells, and endothelial cells. Thus, cholinergic signaling plays a pivotal role in controlling their behaviors. Studies regarding this signal are beginning to unify our understanding of stem cell regulation at the cellular and molecular levels, and they are expected to advance efforts to control stem cells therapeutically. The present article reviews recent findings about cholinergic signaling that is essential to control stem cell function in a cholinergic niche.


Author(s):  
Anja Trillhaase ◽  
Marlon Maertens ◽  
Zouhair Aherrahrou ◽  
Jeanette Erdmann

AbstractStem cell technology has been around for almost 30 years and in that time has grown into an enormous field. The stem cell technique progressed from the first successful isolation of mammalian embryonic stem cells (ESCs) in the 1990s, to the production of human induced-pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) in the early 2000s, to finally culminate in the differentiation of pluripotent cells into highly specialized cell types, such as neurons, endothelial cells (ECs), cardiomyocytes, fibroblasts, and lung and intestinal cells, in the last decades. In recent times, we have attained a new height in stem cell research whereby we can produce 3D organoids derived from stem cells that more accurately mimic the in vivo environment. This review summarizes the development of stem cell research in the context of vascular research ranging from differentiation techniques of ECs and smooth muscle cells (SMCs) to the generation of vascularized 3D organoids. Furthermore, the different techniques are critically reviewed, and future applications of current 3D models are reported. Graphical abstract


Cancers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 2407
Author(s):  
Ruicen He ◽  
Arthur Dantas ◽  
Karl Riabowol

Acetylation of histones is a key epigenetic modification involved in transcriptional regulation. The addition of acetyl groups to histone tails generally reduces histone-DNA interactions in the nucleosome leading to increased accessibility for transcription factors and core transcriptional machinery to bind their target sequences. There are approximately 30 histone acetyltransferases and their corresponding complexes, each of which affect the expression of a subset of genes. Because cell identity is determined by gene expression profile, it is unsurprising that the HATs responsible for inducing expression of these genes play a crucial role in determining cell fate. Here, we explore the role of HATs in the maintenance and differentiation of various stem cell types. Several HAT complexes have been characterized to play an important role in activating genes that allow stem cells to self-renew. Knockdown or loss of their activity leads to reduced expression and or differentiation while particular HATs drive differentiation towards specific cell fates. In this study we review functions of the HAT complexes active in pluripotent stem cells, hematopoietic stem cells, muscle satellite cells, mesenchymal stem cells, neural stem cells, and cancer stem cells.


2011 ◽  
Vol 2011 ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Takashi Yokoo ◽  
Kei Matsumoto ◽  
Shinya Yokote

Significant advances have been made in stem cell research over the past decade. A number of nonhematopoietic sources of stem cells (or progenitor cells) have been identified, including endothelial stem cells and neural stem cells. These discoveries have been a major step toward the use of stem cells for potential clinical applications of organ regeneration. Accordingly, kidney regeneration is currently gaining considerable attention to replace kidney dialysis as the ultimate therapeutic strategy for renal failure. However, due to anatomic complications, the kidney is believed to be the hardest organ to regenerate; it is virtually impossible to imagine such a complicated organ being completely rebuilt from pluripotent stem cells by gene or chemical manipulation. Nevertheless, several groups are taking on this big challenge. In this manuscript, current advances in renal stem cell research are reviewed and their usefulness for kidney regeneration discussed. We also reviewed the current knowledge of the emerging field of renal stem cell biology.


2021 ◽  
pp. ASN.2021081073
Author(s):  
Melissa Little ◽  
Benjamin Humphreys

Fifteen years ago, this journal published a review outlining future options for regenerating the kidney. At that time, stem cell populations were being identified in multiple tissues, the concept of stem cell recruitment to a site of injury was of great interest, and the possibility of postnatal renal stem cells was growing in momentum. Since that time, we have seen the advent of human induced pluripotent stem cells, substantial advances in our capacity to both sequence and edit the genome, global and spatial transcriptional analysis down to the single-cell level, and a pandemic that has challenged our delivery of health care to all. This article will look back over this period of time to see how our view of kidney development, disease, repair, and regeneration has changed and envision a future for kidney regeneration and repair over the next 15 years.


Circulation ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 142 (Suppl_3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Muthukumar Gunasekaran ◽  
Rachana Mishra ◽  
Progyaparamita Saha ◽  
Xuebin Fu ◽  
Mohamed Abdullah ◽  
...  

Stem cells transplantation is being explored as an effective therapy for heart diseases. However, majority of stem cell therapies for adult patients with myocardial infarction (MI) had mixed and inconsistent results implying chronological age may influence the effectiveness of regenerative therapies. Therefore, herein, we performed a head-to-head comparison between different, well-studied stem cell types to identify the superior regenerative cell type using rodent MI model.After our standard characterization for each stem cell type (FACS for cell surface markers), 1 million neonatal Cardiac Mesenchymal Stem cells (nMSCs), adult MSCs (aMSCs), adult derived cardiosphere derived cells (aCDCs), umbilical cord derived cells (UCBCs), Bone Marrow derived Mesenchymal Stem cells (BM-MSCs), or cell-free Iscove Modified Dulbecco Medium (IMDM as placebo control) were injected into athymic rat myocardial infarct model. Although all the tested groups significantly improved ejection fraction, nMSCs outperformed other stem cells in cardiac functional recovery. Additionally, nMSCs also showed significant increased cardiac functional recovery compared to aMSCs in wild type rat MI model. Mason trichrome staining with heart sections revealed that decreased fibrosis was evident on nMSCs injection compared to aMSCs in both athymic and wild type rat MI model. Myocardial sections from rats received nMSCs showed significantly reduced M1 macrophages (inflammatory) and increased M2 macrophages (anti-inflammatory) compared with sections from rats having received aMSCs and IMDM control. Pro and anti-inflammatory cytokines analyzed on sera collected on day 2 and 7 revealed that anti-inflammatory cytokine (IL10) was significantly increased and inflammatory cytokines (IL4 and IL12) reduced in nMSCs compared to aMSCs transplanted MI rat model.In conclusion, nMSCs demonstrated superior functional abilities, reduced fibrosis, inflammatory cells and cytokines compared to all the other cell types and with aMSCs demonstrating that nMSCs is an ideal stem cell type for therapeutic application in myocardial infarction.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chengguang Wu ◽  
Long Chen ◽  
Yi-zhou Huang ◽  
Yongcan Huang ◽  
Ornella Parolini ◽  
...  

Human multipotent stem cell-based therapies have shown remarkable potential in regenerative medicine and tissue engineering applications due to their abilities of self-renewal and differentiation into multiple adult cell types under appropriate conditions. Presently, human multipotent stem cells can be isolated from different sources, but variation among their basic biology can result in suboptimal selection of seed cells in preclinical and clinical research. Thus, the goal of this study was to compare the biological characteristics of multipotent stem cells isolated from human bone marrow, placental decidua basalis, and urine, respectively. First, we found that urine-derived stem cells (USCs) displayed different morphologies compared with other stem cell types. USCs and placenta decidua basalis-derived mesenchymal stem cells (PDB-MSCs) had superior proliferation ability in contrast to bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs); these cells grew to have the highest colony-forming unit (CFU) counts. In phenotypic analysis using flow cytometry, similarity among all stem cell marker expression was found, excluding CD29 and CD105. Regarding stem cell differentiation capability, USCs were observed to have better adipogenic and endothelial abilities as well as vascularization potential compared to BMSCs and PDB-MSCs. As for osteogenic and chondrogenic induction, BMSCs were superior to all three stem cell types. Future therapeutic indications and clinical applications of BMSCs, PDB-MSCs, and USCs should be based on their characteristics, such as growth kinetics and differentiation capabilities.


Cells ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (12) ◽  
pp. 255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miruna Mihaela Micheu ◽  
Alina Ioana Scarlatescu ◽  
Alexandru Scafa-Udriste ◽  
Maria Dorobantu

Despite significant progress in treating ischemic cardiac disease and succeeding heart failure, there is still an unmet need to develop effective therapeutic strategies given the persistent high-mortality rate. Advances in stem cell biology hold great promise for regenerative medicine, particularly for cardiac regeneration. Various cell types have been used both in preclinical and clinical studies to repair the injured heart, either directly or indirectly. Transplanted cells may act in an autocrine and/or paracrine manner to improve the myocyte survival and migration of remote and/or resident stem cells to the site of injury. Still, the molecular mechanisms regulating cardiac protection and repair are poorly understood. Stem cell fate is directed by multifaceted interactions between genetic, epigenetic, transcriptional, and post-transcriptional mechanisms. Decoding stem cells’ “panomic” data would provide a comprehensive picture of the underlying mechanisms, resulting in patient-tailored therapy. This review offers a critical analysis of omics data in relation to stem cell survival and differentiation. Additionally, the emerging role of stem cell-derived exosomes as “cell-free” therapy is debated. Last but not least, we discuss the challenges to retrieve and analyze the huge amount of publicly available omics data.


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