The bladder is lined by urothelium a mitoticallyquiescent epithelium in situ characterised by an extremely low turnover rate and long-lived cells. However, in response to injury, infection or other stimuli, the urothelium develops a highly regenerative response. As a self-renewing tissue, there is assumed to be a resident progenitor population. However, no specific population has yet been ident...

AIMS To characterize the detrusor muscle of the mouse urinary bladder in order to understand more precisely spontaneous contractile behavior of this organ. This study examined the spontaneous electrical activity and Ca(2+) dynamics of the detrusor smooth muscle and investigated the role of the urothelium. MATERIALS AND METHODS Detrusor smooth muscle strips were isolated from mouse bladders. T...

The urinary bladder and associated tract is lined by the urothelium. Once considered as just an impermeable epithelium, it is becoming evident that the urothelium not only functions as a volume-accommodating urinary barrier but has additional roles, including sensory signaling. Lack of access to normal human urothelium has hampered physiological investigation, and although cell culture systems ...

Normal human urothelium and tumors of urothelial origin were ana lyzed with a panel of seven mouse monoclonal antibodies that identify surface antigens of cultured bladder cancer cell lines. Three categories of antigens were defined on the basis of differential expression on normal urothelium versus bladder tumors. Om5 (a category 1 antigen) is a highly restricted, differentiation antigen detec...

Objective: Few studies have investigated the impact of diabetes, on the energy generating pathways of the bladder detrusor and urothelium. Such studies might identify strategies that can ameliorate diabetic bladder pathophysiology. Methods: Streptozotocin was used to induce diabetes in 8 male Fischer rats for one month. Hyperglycemia was confirmed and urothelium and detrusor tissue isolated fro...

Terminal differentiation of urothelium is a prerequisite for blood-urine barrier formation and enables normal sensory function of the urinary bladder. In this study, urothelial differentiation of normal human urothelium and of low and high grade papillary urothelial carcinomas was correlated with the expression and localization of purinergic receptors (P2X3, and P2X5) and transient receptor pot...

Our aim was to investigate whether guinea pig urothelium-derived bioactivities compatible with the existence of urothelium-derived inhibitory factor could be demonstrated by in vitro serial bioassay and whether purinergic P1 receptor agonists, nitric oxide, nitrite or prostaglandins might explain observed activities. In a cascade superfusion system, urothelium-denuded guinea pig ureters were us...

Although the epithelial lining of much of the mammalian urinary tract is known simply as the urothelium, this epithelium can be divided into at least three lineages of renal pelvis/ureter, bladder/trigone, and proximal urethra based on their embryonic origin, uroplakin content, keratin expression pattern, in vitro growth potential, and propensity to keratinize during vitamin A deficiency. Moreo...

PURPOSE To investigate the differentiation ability of human adipose-derived stem cells (ASCs) towards urothelium-like cells in vitro and the dynamic changes of related cytokines and cytokine receptors in the culture medium. MATERIALS AND METHODS The ASCs were induced using both conditioned media (CM) and the transwell co-culture system with an immortalized urothelium cell line (SV-HUC-1,HUC) ...