In the laboratory, kidneys were grown

Thousands of people are queued around the world for a kidney transplant operation. And this turn does not decrease because of the lack of donors. At the same time, there is a criminal market that is supported by a shortage of donor organs and their high cost. As a solution to the problem, Japanese experts propose to grow donor organs( including kidneys) from stem cells. In their opinion, for such technology the future of transplantology.

A couple of years ago, the artificial growth of the mouse kidney was transplanted. The donor organ took root, but at the same time it could not fully perform its functions. Problems in that case were with urinary diversion, because of which inside the kidney created an excessive pressure, which, after reaching a critical level, led to the death of the animal.

Now Japanese specialists have also tried to transplant a kidney grown in the laboratory. This they tried to do to rats and pigs. The result was the normal functioning of the donor body.

The operation was conducted at the Jikey University School of Medicine by Dr. Takashi Jokko and his colleagues. Previously they raised from the stem cells not only the kidney, but also the bladder connected with the help of the ureter. This was done so that during the transplantation there was an opportunity to connect the kidney tubules with the urinary diversion system.

After this, the whole system was transplanted into the rat, where the formed urine first came from the bladder( also grown in the laboratory), and then passed through the urethra outward. The condition of the animals was observed for eight weeks after the operation and throughout this time the rats did not experience any problems with urination.

The success of the operation allowed Japanese scientists to decide on a kidney transplantation to a larger animal. Subsequently, the experiment was carried out on a pig, which was transplanted to a kidney and bladder grown in the laboratory. The operation was successful and the transplanted system coped with all its functions.

The obtained results of the study do not allow to say exactly about the possibility of the same transplantation of a organ grown in a laboratory to a human. But with their help it is possible to estimate, how the mechanism of allocation in the artificially grown kidney is carried out.

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