In the glomerulus, podocytes extend elongated podocin-positive protrusions, known

as foot processes, which insert into the GBM, separating the podocytes from the
underlying glomerular endothelium and these protrusions have a noteworthy role in
the regulation of glomerular filtration 3 . Immunofluorescence microscopy analysis
showed that although podocin staining was largely limited to the cell body of
immortalized podocytes, bright staining was seen in both the cell bodies and narrow
membrane protrusions of hiPS-cell-derived podocytes (Fig. 3a, top). Scanning
electron microscopy analysis confirmed the presence of both primary and secondary
branches in the long cell processes that extended from the hiPS-cell-derived
podocytes, whereas these differentiated structures were less developed in the
podocyte cell line (Fig. 3a, bottom, and Supplementary Fig. 7a). We also observed
that the hiPS-cell-derived podocytes extended their cell processes toward
neighbouring cells and form an interconnected multi-cellular network with slit-like
spaces between neighbouring cell processes that form tight cellcell contacts in
vitro (Supplementary Fig. 7b). These findings are consistent with previous reports
that existing human podocyte cell lines do not form well-defined foot processes
3,41,42 , and by contrast, show that the hiPS-cell-derived podocytes develop
structural features that resemble those exhibited by kidney glomerular podocytes in
vivo 21 .