Urine-Derived Stem Cells: Applications in Regenerative and Predictive Medicine

Abstract

Despite being a biological waste, human urine contains a small population of cells with self-renewal capacity and differentiation potential into several cell types. Being derived from the convoluted tubules of nephron, renal pelvis, ureters, bladder and urethra, urine-derived stem cells (UDSC) have a similar phenotype to mesenchymal stroma cells (MSC) and can be reprogrammed into iPSC (induced pluripotent stem cells). Having simple, safer, low-cost and noninvasive collection procedures, the interest in UDSC has been growing in the last decade. With great potential in regenerative medicine applications, UDSC can also be used as biological models for pharmacology and toxicology tests. This review describes UDSC biological characteristics and differentiation potential and their possible use, including the potential of UDSC-derived iPSC to be used in drug discovery and toxicology, as well as in regenerative medicine. Being a new cellular platform amenable to noninvasive collection for disease stratification and personalized therapy could be a future application for UDSC.

Keywords: induced-pluripotent stem cells; personalized medicine; regenerative medicine; urine-derived stem cells.

Figure 1

Potential sources, morphological and phenotypic characterizations of different types of urine-derived stem cells. Upper urinary tract cells can be derived from renal cortical nephron part–renal tubular cells from proximal and distal convoluted tubules [19,20], glomerular pericytes [21,22], renal interstitial cells [21,23,24] and vascular endothelial cells [21,25]. Lower urinary tract urine-derived stem cells (UDSC) belong to epithelial (urothelial) cells from ureter, urinary bladder and urethra [19,21,26]. Original source of UDSC determines their morphology in vitro, culture conditions, phenotype and differentiation capabilities. Image was adapted from original images from Servier Medical Art, as licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Text was added to the original images.

Figure 2

Possible applications for urine-derived cells. After urine collection from healthy or disease-affected individuals, urine-derived cells are cultured and reprogrammed into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC). Those cells can be differentiated into condition-relevant cell types maintaining the original genome. Otherwise, the genome can be edited to correct mutations or to introduce alterations associated with disease treatments or for research purposes. These differentiated cells can be used for autologous or allogeneic regenerative medicine as a model to study diseases or for pharmacological tests, both in personalized or high-throughput approaches.