Combes lab publications
Selected highlight publications
1. Nunez-Nescolarde AB, Nikolic-Paterson DJ, Combes AN. 2022. Human Kidney Organoids and Tubuloids as Models of Complex Kidney Disease. Am. J. Pathol. 2022 May; 192(5):738-749 DOI: 10.1016/j.ajpath.2022.01.009
This article examines the advantages and disadvantages of adult and iPSC-derived human kidney organoid models for the investigation of complex human kidney disease.
2. Lawlor KT, Zappia L, Lefevre J, Park JS, Hamilton NA, Oshlack A, Little MH, Combes AN. 2019. Nephron progenitor commitment is a stochastic process influenced by cell migration. Elife. 2019 Jan 24;8. pii: e41156. doi:10.7554/eLife.41156.
Challenging a decade of dogma we redefine the nephron progenitor niche as a dynamic environment where cell fate is determined by stochastic migration and progenitors can traverse the transcriptional hierarchy between self-renewal and commitment in either direction. Highlighted in Nat. Rev. Nephrology 2019.
3. Combes AN*^, Zappia L*, Er PX, Oshlack A, Little MH. Single-cell analysis reveals congruence between kidney organoids and human fetal kidney. Genome Med. 2019 Jan 23;11(1):3. doi: 10.1186/s13073-019-0615-0.
Comparing kidney organoids to human fetal kidney at the single cell level revealed strong congruence, supporting applications in disease modelling and identifying organoid cell types that are missing or require improvement.
4. Combes AN*^, Phipson B*, Lawlor KT, Dorison A, Patrick R, Zappia L, Harvey RP, Oshlack A, Little MH. Single cell analysis of the developing mouse kidney provides deeper insight into marker gene expression and ligand-receptor crosstalk. Development. 2019 Jun 12;146(12). pii: dev178673. doi:10.1242/dev.178673.
We used single cell sequencing to interrogate the signalling pathways controlling progenitor maintenance and differentiation in the developing kidney and refine our understanding of cell type-specific marker genes. This study included a deep dive into the nephron progenitor population and provided greater resolution of stromal subcompartments in the developing kidney. Together this data provides a roadmap to improve the differentiation and maintenance of renal cell types in vitro.
5. Phipson B, Er PX, Combes AN, Forbes TA, Howden SE, Zappia L, Yen HJ, Lawlor KT, Hale LJ, Sun J, Wolvetang E, Takasato M, Oshlack A, Little MH. Evaluation of variability in human kidney organoids. Nat Methods. 2019 Jan;16(1):79-87. doi:10.1038/s41592-018-0253-2.
This work evaluated the robustness of generating human kidney organoids. Substantial variation in the proportion and maturation of nephron cell types was observed between experiments. Understanding the sources of experimental variation enabled optimized analysis of organoid-based disease modeling, increasing the utility of kidney organoids for personalized medicine and functional genomics.
* joint first, ^joint communicating
Additional publications
A full list of Combes Lab publications can be viewed on PubMed.