Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Stem Cells. Jul 26, 2021; 13(7): 914-933
Published online Jul 26, 2021. doi: 10.4252/wjsc.v13.i7.914
Current advances of stem cell-based therapy for kidney diseases
Chee-Yin Wong
Chee-Yin Wong, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Kajang 43000, Selangor, Malaysia
Chee-Yin Wong, Research Department, Cytopeutics, Cyberjaya 63000, Selangor, Malaysia
Author contributions: Wong CY compiled the data and wrote the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Author declares no conflict of interests for this article
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Chee-Yin Wong, PhD, Honorary Research Fellow, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Jalan Sungai Long, Bandar Sungai Long, Kajang 43000, Selangor, Malaysia. wongcyin@gmail.com
Received: March 13, 2021
Peer-review started: March 13, 2021
First decision: April 6, 2021
Revised: April 10, 2021
Accepted: July 12, 2021
Article in press: July 12, 2021
Published online: July 26, 2021
Processing time: 131 Days and 23.6 Hours
Abstract

Kidney diseases are a prevalent health problem around the world. Multidrug therapy used in the current routine treatment for kidney diseases can only delay disease progression. None of these drugs or treatments can reverse the progression to an end-stage of the disease. Therefore, it is crucial to explore novel therapeutics to improve patients’ quality of life and possibly cure, reverse, or alleviate the kidney disease. Stem cells have promising potentials as a form of regenerative medicine for kidney diseases due to their unlimited replication and their ability to differentiate into kidney cells in vitro. Mounting evidences from the administration of stem cells in an experimental kidney disease model suggested that stem cell-based therapy has therapeutic or renoprotective effects to attenuate kidney damage while improving the function and structure of both glomerular and tubular compartments. This review summarises the current stem cell-based therapeutic approaches to treat kidney diseases, including the various cell sources, animal models or in vitro studies. The challenges of progressing from proof-of-principle in the laboratory to widespread clinical application and the human clinical trial outcomes reported to date are also highlighted. The success of cell-based therapy could widen the scope of regenerative medicine in the future.

Keywords: Stem cells; Kidney regeneration; Kidney disease; Mesenchymal stem cells; Embryonic stem cells; Induced pluripotent stem cells

Core Tip: Stem cells have the potential to be the next regenerative medicine to treat kidney diseases. There is mounting evidence suggesting that stem cell-based therapy has renoprotective effects to attenuate kidney damage while improving kidney function. This review summarises the current stem cell-based therapy approaches to treat kidney diseases in experimental models and the outcomes from human clinical trials reported to date.