The inside lining of the bladder, the urothelium, forms the tightest barrier in the body, protecting us from urine and bacteria. While the bladder expands and contracts, the urothelium must constantly reorganize itself to maintain the barrier. Our goal is to understand how the barrier is maintained, reorganized and repaired, as the loss of this barrier is a hallmark of bladder diseases such as bladder pain syndrome (BPS) and chronic urinary tract infections (UTIs).
Impact
BPS and chronic UTIs cause debilitating bladder pain in a collective 3% of the population. There is no lasting cure, the cause is often unknown, and the effect of current treatment is highly variable. Using stem cells, we aim to create a model of the urothelium that fully recapitulates the properties in the native bladder, a “gold standard”. This model will allow us to better understand complex diseases such as BPS and chronic UTIs to pave the way for better treatments.
reNEW research
Led by Dr. Mariaceleste Aragona, our research team has already grown urothelium in a dish from human cells that closely reproduces the morphology of native bladder tissue. Using mice and stem cell models, we are now working on elucidating the complex mechanisms that allow the urothelium to regenerate and stretch to an extraordinary degree while maintaining its barrier. Knowing how the healthy urothelium works will allow us to understand what goes wrong in disease.
Image description
Like factories, the massive nuclei (blue) of the urothelial cells constantly produce components to maintain the barrier (gold). The urothelium resembles a hilly landscape that flattens as the bladder fills. Shown is the top of one such hill.
Credits
Oscar Bay Axelsen, PhD Student, Aragona Lab, reNEW Copenhagen.
