How Many Cell Types Are in the Kidney and What Do They Do?

Abstract

The kidney maintains electrolyte, water, and acid-base balance, eliminates foreign and waste compounds, regulates blood pressure, and secretes hormones. There are at least 16 different highly specialized epithelial cell types in the mammalian kidney. The number of specialized endothelial cells, immune cells, and interstitial cell types might even be larger. The concerted interplay between different cell types is critical for kidney function. Traditionally, cells were defined by their function or microscopical morphological appearance. With the advent of new single-cell modalities such as transcriptomics, epigenetics, metabolomics, and proteomics we are entering into a new era of cell type definition. This new technological revolution provides new opportunities to classify cells in the kidney and understand their functions. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Physiology, Volume 84 is February 2022. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Spatially resolved human kidney multi-omics single cell atlas highlights the key role of the fibrotic microenvironment in kidney disease progression

“…Previous single cell analyses, focusing on dissociated human and mouse kidney datasets, have generated gene expression and regulatory matrices for a variety of kidney cell types (8)(9)(10)(11)(12)37). As kidney cell types have been functionally well characterized, most identified cell types have been matched back to a more than half-century old functional cell type definition (6). A key limitation of these analyses has been the identification and molecular characterization of anatomically defined cell types, such as mesangial cells, PEC cells, and fibroblasts.…”

The application of 3D bioprinting in urological diseases

“…Further to the complexity of organ physical structure, the mimicking of cellular types and distributions are also critical in tissue engineering. There are at least 16 different highly specialized epithelial cell types in mammals, and the number of specialized endothelial cells, immune cells, and interstitial cell types may even be larger in the kidney [ 168 ]. Human renal glomerular endothelial cells are a specialized microvascular cell type involved in the regulation of glomerular ultrafiltration [ 185 ].…”

“…Different urologic organs contain various non-cancer cell types in the TME. Kidney contains at least 16 different highly specialized epithelial cell types, and the number of specialized endothelial cells, immune cells, and interstitial cell types may even be larger [ 168 ]. Human prostate also contain three unique epithelial cell types including, basal, luminal, and neuroendocrine [ 169 ].…”

Single-cell transcriptomics: A new tool for studying diabetic kidney disease

“…Such a classification ignores the developmental origin and evolution of cells ( Park et al, 2019 ) and fails to elucidate the specific cell subtypes and intercellular heterogeneity. The development of the single-cell sequencing technology has made it possible to achieve strict requirements for unbiased cell type classification ( Balzer et al, 2022 ). It then explores genome-wide gene expression, functional regulation, cell trajectories, and potential crosstalk between cells to improve our understanding of the molecular mechanisms and key drivers of kidney diseases ( Humphreys, 2018 ).…”