Epithelial cells transdifferentiation into bladder urothelium in experiments in vivo

Atoplastic surgery using intestinal tissue has been used for the reconstructive therapy of the urinary tract since the mid-20th century; however, cell mechanisms of the urothelium engraftment are still unclear. Intestinal stem cells possess plasticity and, after autoplastic surgery, are presumably able to transdifferentiate into mature cells of the urinary tract. Using the preliminarily developed model for evaluating of the transdifferentiaion of somatic cells into urothelium in vivo, we found that, in syngeneic C57BL mice, epithelial Gfp-producing intestinal cells transdifferentiate into the cryoinjured bladder urothelium. Gfp was detected in the bladder tissue of recipient mice using reverse polymerase chain reaction, fluorescence and immunofluorescence. Colocalization of Her-4 protein revealed by common urothelium expression pattern and Gfp was demonstrated in few urothelial cells by double immunohistochemical staining of the bladder tissue with specific antibodies. The results obtained suggest that epithelial intestinal cells are able to transdifferentiate into bladder urothelium; however, the level of transdifferentiation is low and, presumably, cannot ensure the full functional urothelium engraftment in the case of autoplastic bladder surgery using intestinal tissue.