Researchers have postulated that scattered tubular cells (STCs) might be the origin of regenerating tubular cells after acute kidney injury. However, new data suggest that STCs are not a fixed progenitor population. Using a transgenic mouse model, Berger and colleagues showed that when STCs were irreversibly genetically labelled before ischaemia reperfusion injury, the frequency of labelled cells did not change during recovery. However, when STCs were labelled during ischaemia reperfusion injury and recovery, the frequency of STCs significantly increased. These data suggest that STCs can arise from any surviving tubular cell. “[STCs] do not represent a fixed progenitor population but rather a phenotype that can be adopted by almost any proximal tubular cell upon injury,” conclude the researchers.