Copyright
©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
Adult stem cells as a tool for kidney regeneration
Etsu Suzuki, Institute of Medical Science, St. Marianna University School of Medicine, Kawasaki 216-8512, Japan
Daishi Fujita, Masao Takahashi, Shigeyoshi Oba, Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-8655, Japan
Hiroaki Nishimatsu, Department of Urology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-8655, Japan
Author contributions: Suzuki E, Fujita D, Takahashi M, Oba S, and Nishimatsu H contributed to this paper.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding this manuscript.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Etsu Suzuki, MD, PhD, Institute of Medical Science, St. Marianna University School of Medicine, 2-16-1 Sugao, Miyamae-ku, Kawasaki 216-8512, Japan. esuzuki-tky@umin.ac.jp
Telephone: +81-44-9778111
Received: August 10, 2015
Peer-review started: August 11, 2015
First decision: September 21, 2015
Revised: September 27, 2015
Accepted: November 23, 2015
Article in press: November 25, 2015
Published online: January 6, 2016
Peer-review started: August 11, 2015
First decision: September 21, 2015
Revised: September 27, 2015
Accepted: November 23, 2015
Article in press: November 25, 2015
Published online: January 6, 2016
Core Tip
Core tip: Although intensive studies have been performed to isolate kidney stem/progenitor cells from the mammalian adult kidney, whether stem/progenitor cells actually exist in the adult kidney is still debated. Mesenchymal stem cells seem to exert beneficial effects via paracrine effects rather than by direct differentiation into renal parenchymal cells. In this review, we also introduce potential roles of extracellular vesicles released from stem cells and direct/indirect reprogramming of adult somatic cells by which kidney stem/progenitor cells will be formed in the future.