The expression of acid-sensing ion channel (ASIC) isoforms, ASIC1, ASIC2a, and ASIC3, was examined in the urinary bladder after cyclophosphamide (CYP)-induced cystitis of varying duration (4 h, 48 h, and chronic). Immunohistochemical, Western blot, and quantitative PCR approaches were used to evaluate channel expression and effects of CYP-induced cystitis in whole urinary bladder and split-blad...

The primary function of the urothelium is to provide the tightest and most impermeable barrier in the body, i.e. the blood-urine barrier. Urothelial plaques are formed and inserted into the apical plasma membrane during advanced stages of urothelial cell differentiation. Currently, it is supposed that differentiation with the final formation of urothelial plaques is hindered in cultured urothel...

BK virus is a polyomavirus belonging to the papovaviridae branch. In addition to BK, the human polyomavirus family includes John Cunningham virus (JCV), Washington University virus (WUV), Karolinska Institute virus (KIV) and Merkel cell viruses (Boothpur et al. 2010). BK virus is a virus without a shell and it has a double-stranded circular nonenveloped DNA. It was first discovered and isolated...

he studies on membrane dynamics in urinary bladder umbrella cells were focused on proteins as important factors for maintaining the permeability barrier and their role as pathways modulators for the discoidal/fusiform endocytic vesicles which is one of the main features of the umbrella cells. However, our workgroup has dedicated to the study of lipid membrane composition and its biological impa...

Although bladder cancer (BC) was the cancer from which the first human oncogene, RAS, was identified, questions persisted over the past 35 years as to whether RAS activation in urothelium was tumorigenic [1]. This was due in large part to the relatively low frequency (~15%) and lack of grade and stage association of RAS mutations in human BC [2]. However, the tide is turning recently in favor o...

Hypothesis / aims of study Interstitial cystitis or painful bladder syndrome (PBS) patients develop pain, urgency and frequency due to hypersensitivity of the afferent nerves innervating the bladder. A previous study has shown 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT, serotonin) plays a role in hypersensitivity of the bowel. However, little is known about the peripheral roles of 5-HT on bladder afferent activ...

Storage symptoms such as urgency, frequency, and nocturia, with or without urge incontinence, are characterized as overactive bladder (OAB). OAB can lead to urge incontinence. Disturbances in nerves, smooth muscle, and urothelium can cause this condition. In some respects the division between peripheral and central causes of OAB is artificial, but it remains a useful paradigm for appreciating t...

The terminally differentiated umbrella cells of bladder epithelium contain unique cytoplasmic organelles, the fusiform vesicles, which deliver preassembled crystalline arrays of uroplakin proteins to the apical cell surface of urothelial umbrella cells. We have investigated the possible role of Rab proteins in this delivery process, and found Rab27b to be expressed at an extraordinary high leve...