Kidney organoids: current knowledge and future directions

The kidney is a highly complex organ in the human body. Although creating an in vitro model of the human kidney is challenging, tremendous advances have been made in recent years. Kidney organoids are in vitro kidney models that are generated from stem cells in three-dimensional (3D) cultures. They exhibit remarkable degree of similarities with the native tissue in terms of cell type, morphology, and function. The establishment of 3D kidney organoids facilitates a mechanistic study of cell communications, and these organoids can be used for drug screening, disease modeling, and regenerative medicine applications. This review discusses the cellular complexity during in vitro kidney generation. We intend to highlight recent progress in kidney organoids and the applications of these relatively new technologies.