The hoops we make researchers go through to find ways to solve human problems- the ones that politicians (and religious kooks) impose to block valid modalities to improve our lives.

Since we are prohibited from effecting research using real stem cells, we have to spend even more time finding ways around the ban to come up with the needed solutions. This first group is playing with mice.

Researchers at Kumamoto University (Drs. S. Tanigawa, A. Taguchi, and R. Nishinakamura) and Drs. N. Sharma and A. O. Perantoni (US National Cancer Institute) have been performing their studies on stem cells in mice, where such research is allowed. They recovered the stem cells and were able to grow them in vitro for a while. Which- at least for mice- may mean we can regenerate kidneys.

Dr. Nishinakamura’s research team had already induced progenitor cells to make nephrons from human iPS cells (2013). The problem is that kidney progenitor cells only survive for about 2 or 3 days. But, by adding humoral leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF), they were able to accelerate kidney formation- but only if there is lots of LIF present- and these survive for about 20 days. Nevertheless, the kidney progenitor cells multiplied to over 1800X their initial levels.

Even so, it’s not enough to construct an organ. And, it’s not a human situation.

In the meantime, a group in Belgium tried a more unusual tack to deal with stem cells. Dr. Elena Levtchenko, along with Fanny Arcolino (this is her PhD research), Silvia Zia, Katharina Held, Koen Theunis, Benedetta Bussolati, Anke Raaijmakers, K. Allegaert, T. Voet, J. Deprest, J. Vriens, J. Toelen, and L. van den Heuvel (all from Belgium’s Katholieke Universiteit Leuven) and E. Papadimitriou (University of Turin, Italy) presented their results in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (Urine of Preterm Neonates as a Novel Source of Kidney Progenitor Cells)

These researchers hypothesized that preterm neonates (those born before 36 week of gestational age) may shed potent stem/progenitor kidney cells. Why? Because nephrogenesis (the development of kidneys) completes around 34 weeks of gestation in utero. (They had already tried to find such stem cells (kidney progenitor cells) in the urine of healthy adults. But, given that the adult kidneys were already mature, the presence of such undifferentiated cells were extremely rare. Like virtually non-existent.)

So, they went about collecting urine from preterm neonates (31 to 36 weeks gestational age) on the first day after birth in the hope that their hypothesis was correct. Lucky for us- it was. They found nephron and stromal (connective tissue for kidneys) progenitor and stem cells in about 50% of the premies’ collected urine. And, these cells seem to be able to differentiate into proximal tubule cells and other mature kidney cells. They also had defenses against cell death.

One of the first uses of this research will be to help premies survive. By retaining the progenitor cells from the urine that are excreted right after birth, we can use them as a treatment for these same premies who often have renal insufficiency. (The kidneys fail to filter the waste products from blood completely, since the premie’s kidneys are not fully developed.)

At least, we are helping some humans.  Unless and until we remove the stem cell research ban, these are the kind of baby steps (pun intended) we can take.

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