A letter in Nature Genetics reports on the cellular mechanisms involved in the elongation of normal vertebrate kidney tubules. The authors used in vivo imaging to show that cells in the Xenopus elongating nephron underwent repeated rounds of mediolaterally oriented intercalation, and found that the elongation was largely driven by a myosin-dependent, multicellular rosette-based mechanism dependent on non-canonical Wnt and planar cell polarity signalling. The authors state that their insights into this mechanism have the potential to be manipulated for therapeutic purposes.