Isolating and Culturing Mouse Podocyte Cells to Study Diabetic Nephropathy

Diabetic nephropathy is associated with injury and loss of podocytes, specialized epithelial cells that are critical for glomerular filtration. This chapter describes a method of isolating and culturing podocyte cells from mouse adult kidneys. In this way, podocytes with genetic modifications can be obtained from transgenic animals and they can be used to study the effects of the diabetic environment in vitro.