Isolation and long-term expansion of adult SOX9+ renal epithelial cells with efficient kidney regeneration capacity

We show that in an appropriate feeder cell-based culture system, it is feasible to isolate and long-term expand the progenitor-like SOX9+ renal epithelial cells (SOX9+ RECs) from adult mammalians. Single cell-derived SOX9+ REC lines can be established from human needle biopsy or urine samples with molecular homogeneity and genomic stability maintained during culture. Such cells grown in 3D culture system could self-organize into renal organoids composed of proximal tubular, Loop of Henle (LOH) and distal tubular cells as illustrated by single cell transcriptomic analysis. SOX9+ renal epithelial cells grown in 3D culture system self-organized into organoids. These cells were isolated and performed 10X genomics single-cell RNA sequencing.