Fig 1.
Morphogenesis of the urothelial branching system during CS14 and CS22.
Development of the metanephroses and urinary collecting system during embryonic periods. Numbers indicate Carnegie stage. Scale bar = 0.5 mm.
Table 1.
Development of the metanephros and the urinary collecting system during the human embryonic period.
Fig 2.
Renal pelvis epithelium (zeroth generation) between CS14 and CS23.
Scale = 200 μm for x50, 20 μm for x400.
Fig 3.
Renal pelvis histology during the embryonic period.
Numbers indicate Carnegie stage. Scale = 200 μm for x50, 20 μm for x400.
Fig 4.
Urinary collecting systems (UCS) of the pre-expanded and expanded groups at CS23.
(A) Expanded UCS are shown in light green. Histology of the zeroth (0th) and third (3rd) generations are indicated by lines. Scale bar = 0.5 mm. (B) Nephrons connected to UCS (green circle) and not yet connected (red circle) are shown.
Fig 5.
Histological sections of metanephroses stained with hematoxylin & eosin.
Comparison between pre-expanded and expanded groups. A) Lower magnification (50×) showing sagittal section of whole metanephros. Scale bar = 20 μm. B) Higher magnification (400×) of renal pelvis at zeroth branching generation. Scale bar = 200 μm. C) Higher magnification (400×) of renal pelvis at third branching generation.
Table 2.
UCS morphometry in expanded- and pre-expanded groups at CS23.
Fig 6.
UCS branching tree showing the generation of end-branching.
The generation of each end-branch is represented by a circled number. The corresponding colors are indicated by a colored bar.
Table 3.
Generation of end-branching according to Polar lobe Group and Interpolar lobe Group.