Steps toward pre-clinical iPSC-derived kindey organoids

Abstract

In this thesis we focused on explorative analysis to advance kidney organoids for the generation of auxiliary kidney tissue. Organoids are self-organizing, three-dimensional tissue cultures that contain structures which mimic human organs and represent a significant improvement beyond traditional two-dimensional cell cultures. Research in this rapidly advancing field, specifically related to the kidney for the purpose of this thesis, has demonstrated that kidney organoids hold great potential in regenerative medicine, drug screening and developmental biology. They are also considered for the field of organ transplantation as a potential source of transplantable tissue. However, factors such as nephron immaturity, limited scale, lack of vascularization, and off-target populations hinder the current application of these kidney organoids. Here, in this thesis, we explored scalability, cryopreservation, morphological maturation after transplantation, quality assessment and safety of iPSC-derived kidney organoids, with the use of different techniques such as immunofluorescent imaging, electron microscopy, and MALDI-MSI.