Kidneys cell populations

Cell Lines. Cell lines, derived from tissue of various species, are commercially available from tissue culture banks. These cell populations are immortalized in that they possess the capacity to permanently proliferate in culture. Such cellular models can be studied in short-term suspension (hours) or longer-term monolayer culture (days, weeks, months). Since cell lines have been extensively cultured or passaged for multiple generations, the degree or retention (or loss) of kidney-specific morphology and function is an important limitation that is not thoroughly addressed for a number of renal cell lines. One renal cell line that has been relatively well characterized is the pig kidney cell line, LLC-PK,. 

Heidrich, H.G. and Dew, M.E. (1977). Homogeneous cell populations from rabbit kidney cortex. J. Cell Biol. 74 780-788. 

This digestion, isolation, and storage approach has been successfully applied to a wide range of tumor and normal tissues. Tumor tissues include both primary and metastatic tumors of the more common types, such as colon, lung, and ovarian tumors, melanomas, and sarcomas, and rare tumors, such as schwannoma. Normal cell populations include lung, ovary, colon, heart, liver, kidney, and blood. 

It is well known that a large number of chemical substances, including toxic metals and metalloids such as arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury, cause cell injury in the kidney. With metal-induced neurotoxicity, factors such as metal-binding proteins, inclusion bodies, and cell-specific receptor-like proteins seem to influence renal injury in animals and humans. It is of interest to note that certain renal cell populations become the targets for metal toxicity, while others do not. In fact, the target cell populations handle the organic and common inorganic nephrotoxicants differently. ... 

Hishikawa K, Marumo T, Miura S, et al. (2005). Musculin/MyoR is expressed in kidney side population cells and can regulate their function. J. Cell. Biol. 169 921-928. 

Although these hPT cells are predominantly (>85%) of PT origin, a small degree of contamination with other epithelial cell populations is unavoidable and, therefore, will exist. While our laboratory has typically not performed additional purification procedures with the hPT cells, options are available to further enrich the PT cell preparation. For example, density gradient centrifugation of the renal cortical cells on Percoll can be performed to obtain PT cells that are >95% of PT origin and distal tubular (DT) cells that have minimal contamination with cells of the PT region, as we have done with cortical cells from rat kidneys (Lash and Tokarz, 1989 Lash et al., 1995). 

Cadmium is effectively accumulated in the kidneys. When the cadmium concentration exceeds 200 gg/g in the kidney cortex, tubular damage will occur in 10% of the population, and proteins begin to leak into urine (proteinuria). When the concentration of cadmium in the kidney cortex exceeds 300 pg/g, the effect is seen in 50% of the exposed population. Typically, excretion of low-molecular weight proteins, such as beta-microglobulin, is increased, due to dysfunction of proximal tubular cells of the kidney. The existence of albumin or other high-molecular weight proteins in the urine indicates that a glomerular injury has also taken place. The excretion of protein-bound cadmium will also be increased. 

In the U.S., the central nervous system syndrome is usually more common among children, and the gastrointestinal syndrome is more prevalent in adults. Exposure to lead is also linked to decreased fertility in men. Lead is a probable human carcinogen, based on sufficient animal evidence. Populations at increased risk of toxicity from exposure to lead include developing fetuses and young children, individuals with decreased kidney function, and children with sickle-cell anemia. 

The lead-induced nephropathy observed in humans and rodents shows a comparable early pathology (Goyer 1993). However, in rodents, proximal tubular cell injury induced by lead can progress to adenocarcinomas of the kidney (see Section 2.2.3.8). The observation of lead-induced kidney tumors in rats may not be relevant to humans. Conclusive evidence for lead-induced renal cancers (or any other type of cancer) in humans is lacking, even in populations in which chronic lead nephropathy is evident. 

Protein-calorie malnutrition has a devastating effect on the thymolym-phatic system, and very early in the course of malnutrition in infants, the thymus usually shows a pronounced atrophy, followed by that of the spleen and then the rest of the lymph nodes. How these are related to (a) the defect of the cell-mediated immunity which we frequently observe in subjects with parasitic infection and (b) the autoimmune disorders of the heart, the kidneys, and the spleen in subtropical and tropical populations are not immediately apparent, but they arc useful areas for further investigations. 

---