Tissue Engineering of Renal Tissue (Kidney)

Worldwide, the critical shortage of kidney donors has created an urgent need for tissue-engineered alternatives. A number of tissue engineering strategies combine three-dimensional (3D) culture systems with developmental biology principles to generate de novo kidney tissue. These approaches start with embryonic kidney fragments or kidney progenitor cells that are induced stepwise to develop into 3D kidney tissue. Other strategies use scaffolds obtained from human or animal kidneys through decellularization as a template for reconstructing a kidney graft, which is then seeded with stem or progenitor cells. Although these approaches have provided very promising results, many challenges must be overcome before engineered kidneys become clinically useful, including size, sufficient vascularization, immunological issues, and proper connection to the host vascular and draining system. This chapter provides an overview of the different strategies available for building renal tissues, highlighting methodological advances reported in recent years.