The filter-building cell
Kidney progenitor cells
Each kidney contains around a million filtering units. Every one of them is built, before birth, from a progenitor cell — and the supply runs out at birth.
What it is
A nephron is the kidney’s working unit: a filter followed by a long tubule that reclaims what the body needs from the filtrate. Nephron progenitor cells are the cells nephrons are built from.
The striking fact about them is that they are used up. Human nephron progenitors are exhausted around the time of birth, so the number of nephrons a person has is essentially fixed from then on. Unlike skin or liver, the kidney does not build new filtering units.
What it does in the body
During development, progenitors sit in a cap around the growing tips of the collecting duct system. Signals from that duct tell them when to divide and stay a progenitor, and when to commit.
A committing progenitor first clumps together with its neighbours, then converts from a loose mesenchymal cell into an organised epithelial sheet — and that sheet folds itself into the glomerulus, the filter, and the tubule segments that follow it.
The tubule then does the fine work: reclaiming water, salts, glucose and amino acids from the filtrate, and adjusting the balance of acid and electrolytes in the blood.
Where RediCell’s come from
Differentiated from umbilical cord tissue, expanded no further than passage two.
What RediCell supplies from this line
Listed for reference only. Cell counts, particle counts and fill volumes are the specification; pricing is not published here and ordering is restricted to verified practitioners and institutions.
| Code | Preparation | Specification |
|---|---|---|
| RC-KIDSCs-10 | Kidney Progenitor Cells | 10M cells / 2 ml vial |
| RC-KIDSCs-25 | Kidney Progenitor Cells | 25M cells / 5 ml vial |
| RC-EX-Kid | Kidney Progenitor Exosomes | 110B+ exosomes / 1 ml vial |