ArticleNature communications2026
A microphysiological human mini-bladder reveals urine-urothelium interplay in tissue resilience and UPEC recurrence in urinary tract infections.
Article in Nature communications, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed.
- Curved by Design: Applying Microfluidic Principles for Nonplanar and Planar Suspended Tissue Patterning to the Development of Bladder Models with Tunable Mechanics.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Effect of human urinary microenvironment and fluid flow on antibiotic and phage therapy efficacy against uropathogenic Escherichia coli.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Targeted lysosomal activation in bladder epithelium enhances clearance of intracellular uropathogenic Escherichia coli.PLoS pathogens · 2026Article
- Simulating the host niche: balancing complexity and control in the experimental evolution of antibiotic resistance and pathoadaptation.Microbiology (Reading, England) · 2026Review
- UropathogenicAntibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
15 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Urine is a dynamic and highly variable biofluid. Urine-urothelium interactions are a critical yet underexplored factor in bladder homoeostasis and urinary tract infections (UTIs). Here, we report on a human 'mini-bladder' model that exposes a stratified urothelium to urine of defined composition, and incorporates micturition. Prolonged exposure to high-solute concentration urine weakens tight junctions, dysregulates immune responses, and reduces bladder tissue resilience. This increases susceptibility to colonisation of the bladder by uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC) which reduces efficacy of antibiotic therapy. In high-solute concentration urine, Fosfomycin monotherapy - prescribed for uncomplicated UTIs, induces the formation of cell wall-deficient (CWD) UPEC in the urine (as observed in patients with recurrent UTIs) but also within deeper urothelial layers. Tissue-associated CWD UPEC directly contributes to recurrence. Our findings expand the conceptual role for CWD UPEC in UTIs, and demonstrate the power of the mini-bladder platform to capture urine-urothelial microenvironment dynamics that actively shape UTI pathogenesis and antibiotic tolerance.
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Registered trials
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