Abstract
Kidney organogenesis has been a widely used classical model system to study inductive tissue interactions that guide differentiation of many organs. The basis for this is in the pioneering work done during the early 1950s when the conditions of how to support ex vivo growth and differentiation of developing kidneys were revealed. Importantly, culturing developing kidneys remains as an essential instrument to advance our understanding of molecular and cellular regulation of morphogenesis even today. Despite the fact that embryonic kidneys have been cultured for decades, it is not a trivial method and requires specific anatomical and developmental biology knowledge. This chapter outlines the general steps in organ culture and details the requirements for successful kidney explant differentiation.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Saxen L (1987) Organogenesis of the kidney. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Costantini F (2012) Genetic controls and cellular behaviors in branching morphogenesis of the renal collecting system. Wiley Interdiscip Rev Dev Biol 1:693–713
O'Brien LL, McMahon AP (2014) Induction and patterning of the metanephric nephron. Semin Cell Dev Biol 36:31–38
Cebrian C, Borodo K, Charles N, Herzlinger DA (2004) Morphometric index of the developing murine kidney. Dev Dyn 231:601–608
Short KM, Combes AN, Lefevre J, Ju AL, Georgas KM, Lamberton T, Cairncross O, Rumballe BA, McMahon AP, Hamilton NA et al (2014) Global quantification of tissue dynamics in the developing mouse kidney. Dev Cell 29:188–202
Quaggin SE, Kreidberg JA (2008) Development of the renal glomerulus: good neighbors and good fences. Development 135:609–620
Schedl A (2007) Renal abnormalities and their developmental origin. Nat Rev Genet 8:791–802
Grobstein C (1953) Inductive epithelio-mesenchymal interaction in cultured organ rudiments of the mouse. Science 118:52–55
Motamedi FJ, Badro DA, Clarkson M, Lecca MR, Bradford ST, Buske FA, Saar K, Hubner N, Brandli AW, Schedl A (2014) WT1 controls antagonistic FGF and BMP-pSMAD pathways in early renal progenitors. Nat Commun 5:4444
Ihermann-Hella A, Lume M, Miinalainen IJ, Pirttiniemi A, Gui Y, Peranen J, Charron J, Saarma M, Costantini F, Kuure S (2014) Mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway regulates branching by remodeling epithelial cell adhesion. PLoS Genet 10:e1004193
Riccio P, Cebrian C, Zong H, Hippenmeyer S, Costantini F (2016) Ret and Etv4 promote directed movements of progenitor cells during renal branching morphogenesis. PLoS Biol 14:e1002382
Saarela U, Akram SU, Desgrange A, Rak-Raszewska A, Shan J, Cereghini S, Ronkainen VP, Heikkila J, Skovorodkin I, Vainio SJ (2017) Novel fixed z-direction (FiZD) kidney primordia and an organoid culture system for time-lapse confocal imaging. Development 144:1113–1117
Voutilainen M, Lindfors PH, Lefebvre S, Ahtiainen L, Fliniaux I, Rysti E, Murtoniemi M, Schneider P, Schmidt-Ullrich R, Mikkola ML (2012) Ectodysplasin regulates hormone-independent mammary ductal morphogenesis via NF-kappaB. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 109:5744–5749
Speroni L, Voutilainen M, Mikkola ML, Klager SA, Schaeberle CM, Sonnenschein C, Soto AM (2017) New insights into fetal mammary gland morphogenesis: differential effects of natural and environmental estrogens. Sci Rep 7:40806
Burke ZD, Li WC, Slack JM, Tosh D (2010) Isolation and culture of embryonic pancreas and liver. Methods Mol Biol 633:91–99
Shih HP, Sander M (2014) Pancreas development ex vivo: culturing embryonic pancreas explants on permeable culture inserts, with fibronectin-coated glass microwells, or embedded in three-dimensional matrigel. Methods Mol Biol 1210:229–237
Trowell OA (1954) A modified technique for organ culture in vitro. Exp Cell Res 6:246–248
Saxen L, Lehtonen E (1987) Embryonic kidney in organ culture. Differentiation 36:2–11
Sebinger DD, Unbekandt M, Ganeva VV, Ofenbauer A, Werner C, Davies JA (2010) A novel, low-volume method for organ culture of embryonic kidneys that allows development of cortico-medullary anatomical organization. PLoS One 5:e10550
Aresh B, Peuckert C (2017) Dissection and culture of mouse embryonic kidney. J Vis Exp (123):55715
Nie X, Xu J, El-Hashash A, Xu PX (2011) Six1 regulates Grem1 expression in the metanephric mesenchyme to initiate branching morphogenesis. Dev Biol 352:141–151
Majumdar A, Vainio S, Kispert A, McMahon J, McMahon AP (2003) Wnt11 and Ret/Gdnf pathways cooperate in regulating ureteric branching during metanephric kidney development. Development 130:3175–3185
Kuure S, Sainio K, Vuolteenaho R, Ilves M, Wartiovaara K, Immonen T, Kvist J, Vainio S, Sariola H (2005) Crosstalk between Jagged1 and GDNF/Ret/GFRalpha1 signalling regulates ureteric budding and branching. Mech Dev 122:765–780
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature
About this protocol
Cite this protocol
Ihermann-Hella, A., Kuure, S. (2019). Mouse Ex Vivo Kidney Culture Methods. In: Vainio, S. (eds) Kidney Organogenesis. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 1926. Humana Press, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-9021-4_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-9021-4_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Humana Press, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4939-9020-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-4939-9021-4
eBook Packages: Springer Protocols