Bone marrow stem cells contribute to repair of the ischemically injured renal tubule
J. Clin. Invest. Sujata Kale, et al. 112:42 doi:10.1172/JCI17856 [Go to this article.]

Figure 4
Ischemia induces bone marrow cells to repopulate the tubules of the outer medulla. (a–f) Low-magnification (×4; a, c, and e) and high-magnification (×40; b, d, and f) views of X-gal–stained kidney sections from mice that underwent 25 minutes of I/R 16 weeks after whole BMT, followed by a 1-week recovery period (a and b); mice 17 weeks after BMT that had not undergone renal ischemia (c and d); and mice that underwent 25 minutes of I/R with a 1-week recovery period but did not undergo BMT (e and f). I/R induced a marked increase in the total number of β-galactosidase–positive tubules, with the majority of those tubules confined to the region of necrosis in the outer medulla (a and b; blue tubules). (g and h) Transplantation of Lin^–Sca-1⁺c-kit⁺ BMSCs followed 5 weeks later by 25 minutes of I/R resulted in a similar appearance of β-galactosidase–positive tubules in the outer medulla (h), while animals transplanted with lineage-restricted (Lin⁺) cells had no β-galactosidase–positive tubules after renal injury (g). OM, outer medulla; IM, inner medulla.