Kidney micro-organoids in suspension culture as a scalable source of human pluripotent stem cell-derived kidney cells

• DOI: 10.1242/dev.172361
• Publication Date: 2019-03-07T16:52:11Z
• Authors: Santhosh V. Kumar; Pei X. Er; Kynan T. Lawlor; Ali Motazedian; Michelle Scurr; Irene Ghobrial; Alexander N. Combes; Luke Zappia; Alicia Oshlack; Edouard G. Stanley; Melissa H. Little
• Keywords: Organoid; Regenerative Medicine; Cell type

ABSTRACT Kidney organoids have potential uses in disease modelling, drug screening and regenerative medicine. However, novel cost-effective techniques are needed to enable scaled-up production of kidney cell types vitro. We describe here a modified suspension culture method for the generation micro-organoids from human pluripotent stem cells. Optimisation differentiation conditions allowed formation micro-organoids, each containing six ten nephrons that were surrounded by endothelial stromal populations. Single transcriptional profiling confirmed presence equivalence all anticipated renal consistent with previous organoid method. This micro-organoid methodology resulted three- fourfold increase final yield compared static culture, thereby representing an economical approach cells various biological applications.