The significance of the native urine sediment in the differential of glomerular disease needs no further comments. However the question arises whether it could be useful to develop a more specific diagnostic approach to identify the origin of renal epithelial cells that can be detected in the urine sediments as well. Especially the detection of podocytes in the urine could be a valuable non-invasive method to get information about the disease activity or disease type and could be used as a follow up. So far there are only a few studies that analyzed the clinicaI relevance of renal epithelial cells in the urine. This review summarizes the available information on marker proteins that have been successfully used in the diagnostic of podocytes in the urine. Furthermore it shows possible diagnostic usefulness of epithelial urinary cells assessment and future research directions.