Journal
NATURE BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING
Volume 1, Issue 5, Pages -Publisher
NATURE RESEARCH
DOI: 10.1038/s41551-017-0069
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Funding
- Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency [W911NF-12-2-0036]
- Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University
- Harvard Medical School
- UNCF-Merck Postdoctoral Fellowship
- Postdoctoral Enrichment Program Award from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund
- NIH/NIDDK Nephrology Training Grant [4T32DK007199-39]
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An in vitro model of the human kidney glomerulus-the major site of blood filtration-could facilitate drug discovery and illuminate kidney-disease mechanisms. Microfluidic organ-on-a-chip technology has been used to model the human proximal tubule, yet a kidney-glomerulus-on-a-chip has not been possible because of the lack of functional human podocytes-the cells that regulate selective permeability in the glomerulus. Here, we demonstrate an efficient (over 90%) and chemically defined method for directing the differentiation of human induced pluripotent stem (hiPS) cells into podocytes that express markers for a mature phenotype (nephrin(+), WT1(+), podocin(+), PAX2(-)) and that exhibit primary and secondary foot processes. We also show that the hiPS-cell-derived podocytes produce glomerular basement-membrane collagen and recapitulate the natural tissue-tissue interface of the glomerulus, as well as the differential clearance of albumin and inulin, when co-cultured with human glomerular endothelial cells in an organ-on-a-chip microfluidic device. The glomerulus-on-a-chip also mimics adriamycin-induced albuminuria and podocyte injury. This in vitro model of human glomerular function with mature human podocytes may facilitate drug development and personalized-medicine applications.
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