Urine-Derived Stem Cells: Applications in Regenerative and Predictive Medicine

• Autor(a) principal: Bento, Guida
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Outros Autores: Shafigullina, Aygul K., Rizvanov, Albert A., Sardão, Vilma A., Macedo, Maria Paula, Oliveira, Paulo J.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10316/105857; https://doi.org/10.3390/cells9030573
• topic: urine-derived stem cells; personalized medicine; regenerative medicine; induced-pluripotent stem cells; Animals; Disease Models, Animal; Drug Discovery; Humans; Stem Cells; Urine; Precision Medicine; Regenerative Medicine

Despite being a biological waste, human urine contains a small population of cells with self-renewal capacity and differentiation potential into several cell types. Being derived from the convoluted tubules of nephron, renal pelvis, ureters, bladder and urethra, urine-derived stem cells (UDSC) have a similar phenotype to mesenchymal stroma cells (MSC) and can be reprogrammed into iPSC (induced pluripotent stem cells). Having simple, safer, low-cost and noninvasive collection procedures, the interest in UDSC has been growing in the last decade. With great potential in regenerative medicine applications, UDSC can also be used as biological models for pharmacology and toxicology tests. This review describes UDSC biological characteristics and differentiation potential and their possible use, including the potential of UDSC-derived iPSC to be used in drug discovery and toxicology, as well as in regenerative medicine. Being a new cellular platform amenable to noninvasive collection for disease stratification and personalized therapy could be a future application for UDSC.