Paving the Kidneys

Our kidneys are made up of thousands of tiny tubes through which liquid flows as it's processed to make urine. Each of these tubes is made up of a thin pavement of cells 'glued' together by a network of special joints, known as cell junctions. In turn, these junctions are connected to the molecular 'scaffolding' inside cells. The picture on the left shows a layer of healthy kidney cells, neatly aligned like paving slabs, with the junctions highlighted in pink and the internal scaffold in green. On the right the kidney cells are missing a molecule called CAP350, which normally sticks to the scaffolding, helping to organise the structure of cells and enabling them to form proper junctions. Faulty cells are unusually large and don't form into neat sheets, meaning that the resulting tubes in the kidneys will be leaky and the organs won't work properly.

Written by Kat Arney

Kat Arney

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Dr Kat Arney is an award-winning science writer, broadcaster and public speaker, and is the founder and Creative Director of First Create The Media.

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• Image by Richard Robinson
• Originally published under a Creative Commons Licence (BY 4.0)
• Research published in PLOS Biology, March 2015