Transport of organic anions and cations in murine embryonic kidney development and in serially-reaggregated engineered kidneys

Recent advances in renal tissue engineering have shown that dissociated, early renogenic tissue from the developing embryo can self-assemble into morphologically accurate kidney-like organs arranged around a central collecting duct tree. In order for such self-assembled kidneys to be useful therapeutically or as models for drug screening, it is necessary to demonstrate that they are functional. One of the main functional characteristics of mature kidneys is transport of organic anions and cations into and out of the proximal tubule. Here, we show that the transport function of embryonic kidneys allowed to develop in culture follows a developmental time-course that is comparable to embryonic kidney development in vivo. We also demonstrate that serially-reaggregated engineered kidneys can transport organic anions and cations through specific uptake and efflux channels. These results support the physiological relevance of kidneys grown in culture, a commonly used model for kidney development and research and suggest that serially-reaggregated kidneys self-assembled from separated cells have some functional characteristics of intact kidneys.