Nils Lindstrom and colleagues publish new research in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology

At an early stage, a nephron forming in the human kidney generates an S-shaped structure. Green cells will generate the kidneys’ filtering device, and blue and red cells specialized regions responsible for distinct nephron activities. (Image courtesy of Stacy Moroz and Tracy Tran/McMahon Lab)

Researchers are hard at work building mini-kidneys from human cells—using blueprints mostly drawn from lab mice. But mouse kidneys differ from their human counterparts in more than mere scale, as detailed by the USC Stem Cell laboratory of Andy McMahon in three studies in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.

“In mice, the kidney develops over a period of approximately two weeks, resulting in the formation of 16,000 filtration units called nephrons,” said first author Nils Lindstrom. “In humans, this organ forms over a period of approximately 32 weeks, during which one million nephrons form. While mouse and human nephrons show some similar patterns of development, it’s not entirely surprising that we also observe some major differences between these species.”