Cell Catcher: a new method to extract and preserve live renal cells from urine.

Patient-specific urine-derived cells are valuable tools for biomedical research and personalised medicine since collection is non-invasive and easily repeated, unlike biopsies. The full potential of urine-derived cells remains untapped, however, due to the short shelf life of samples and necessity for prompt centrifugation. This study aims to address this limitation by evaluating a novel filtration-based Cell Catcher device and comparing its efficiency to centrifugation. We obtained urine from 18 tubulopathy patients and using paired analysis demonstrated that the Cell Catcher device significantly improves the success rate of isolating viable renal cells, and the cell yield. The findings were confirmed in a second independent study, using 44 samples obtained from healthy controls or patients with Bardet-Biedl syndrome or tubulopathies, where colonies were established in 90% of the Cell Catcher-processed samples. Cultured cells displayed a variety of morphologies and expressed markers of podocyte and proximal tubule cells. Collectively, we describe an improved, point-of-care methodology to obtain live patient cells from urine using a filtration technique, with potential personalised medicine applications in nephrology, regenerative medicine, and urological cancers.