Derivation of renal-like cells from mouse embryonic stem cells

This protocol describes mESCs differentiation into renal cell types in vitro. Renal developmental genes are expressed during EB cultivation. Marker molecules characteristic of terminally differentiated renal cell types can be detected predominantly during late stages of EB cultivation, while marker molecules involved in the initiation of nephrogenesis are already expressed during early steps of EB development. On the cellular level, cells expressing podocin, nephrin and wt-1, characteristic for differentiated podocytes can be detected, while other cells, which expressed Tamm-Horsfall protein, a marker for distal tubule epithelial cells of kidney tissue, also arise. The differentiation efficiency into these cell types is still relatively low.