Differentiated kidney epithelial cells repair injured proximal tubule
Abstract
When epithelial cells in the proximal portion of the nephron are damaged they rapidly proliferate to repair the damage to the kidney. Whether a stem cell is responsible for this proliferative response or not is controversial. Although a scattered population of cells can be found in the human proximal tubule that seem to have stem-cell characteristics, they could also represent isolated damaged cells that have dedifferentiated and lost their epithelial characteristics. We resolve these conflicting models using genetic lineage analysis to demonstrate that fully differentiated proximal tubule cells not only proliferate after injury, but they also upregulate apparent stem-cell markers. This study shows that epithelial dedifferentiation is responsible for repair of mouse proximal tubule, rather than an adult stem-cell population.
- Publication:
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Science
- Pub Date:
- January 2014
- DOI:
- 10.1073/pnas.1310653110
- Bibcode:
- 2014PNAS..111.1527K