Organ failure such as renal failure is dramatically improved by transplantation medicine, but it is not a common treatment due to the chronic shortage of donors worldwide.In addition, xenotransplantation using pigs has been attracting attention for some time, but it is difficult to maintain it for a long period of time even if many immunosuppressive agents are managed.On the other hand, there is no regenerative medicine using human iPS cells at the parenchymal organ level that has a function in the living body.

　This time, using a clinically applicable immunosuppressive agent, one monkey was transplanted with a fetal kidney (composite kidney including two kidneys and a ureteral bladder) and a newborn neonatal kidney in a wild pig. went.As a result, the newborn kidney of the pig showed strong tissue damage due to rejection after about 2 weeks, and the transplanted kidney was removed to stop the death.On the other hand, in the fetal kidney of simultaneous transplantation, he did not cause a large rejection reaction in the same monkey body for more than 2 months, and glomeruli and renal tubules developed.

　This proved that transplantation of porcine kidney into monkeys requires strong immunosuppression, but in the case of porcine fetal kidney, even clinically applicable immunosuppression is easy to engraft.It was found that the blood vessels of the host monkey enter and grow as the transplanted porcine fetal kidney grows in the monkey's body.

　The research group has succeeded in developing a device that can safely transplant a soft porcine fetal kidney prototype with a laparoscope, and a hybrid stent that connects the transplanted and developed bladder to the ureter of the host, and is to be used in human clinical practice. We are preparing.

Paper information:[Engineering] In Vivo Development of Fetal Pig Kidneys in Mature Monkeys Under Clinically Approved Immunosuppressant Drugs