In vivo “culture” of a transporting renal epithelial monolayer

Attempts to establish a primary cell culture from a well-defined segment of the mammalian nephron have been fraught with difficulties, and at present no such cell line exists [1]. Handler et al have recently established and maintained a line of toad bladder epithelial cells in culture and have shown that these cells form a transporting epithelial monolayer that is responsive to specific hormonal stimulation [2]. Our initial efforts to achieve the same objective with mammalian tubular epithelial cells have not met with the same success, presumably due to inadequacies in the composition of the culture media used