Abstract:

Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a clinical syndrome of rapidly declining renal function induced by a number of different causes with high rates of morbidity and mortality. Main pathological changes of AKI are necrosis and shedding of renal tubular epithelial cells, lumen blockage, and basement membrane exposure. Kidney repair relies on the migration of surviving epithelial cells to cover the exposed area of the basement membrane and cell differentiation and proliferation to restore renal function. Stem cells are characterized by their ability to self-renew and to differentiate into a variety of cell types and play an important role in kidney repair. Animal models of kidney injury demonstrated that the replacement of necrotic cells mainly relies on surviving mature cells to differentiate and re-enter into cell cycle, or depends on bone marrow stem cells or kidney specific stem/progenitor cells. This review summarizes the promoting effects of bone marrow stem cells and adult renal stem/progenitor cells on kidney repair of the acute kidney injury.

Key words: acute kidney injury, bone marrow stem cells, adult renal stem cells, kidney repair