Host restriction of Escherichia coli recurrent urinary tract infection occurs in a bacterial strain-specific manner
Fig 4
Chronic CFT073 cystitis causes bladder remodeling phenotypes that persist after antibiotic therapy.
Mice were initially mock-infected (“Adult Naive”), or infected with 108 CFU CFT073, and followed for four weeks, at which time ten days of antibiotics were initiated. Four weeks after the start of antibiotic therapy, convalescent bladders were harvested and assessed by microscopy. (A and B) Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to assess bladder epithelial (urothelial) superficial cell size. (A) Superficial cells from N = 2 replicates with a total of n = 4 mice per group were measured in ImageJ and the average surface area (pixels2) was calculated. Data points represent the average of all measurements for a given mouse. * P < 0.05, Mann-Whitney U test. (B) Representative images from the analysis in (A). Scale bars, 25 μm. (C and D) Cell morphology and differentiation was assessed via immunofluorescence of paraffin-embedded bladder sections from N = 2 staining experiments with bladder sections from n = 3 Adult Naive mice and N = 5 CFT073HC mice; representative images are shown. In (C) uroplakin IIIa is in green, Trp63 in red, keratin 5 in white and nuclei in blue. Scale bars, 50 μm. In (D), keratin 20 is shown in white, E-cadherin in green, Trp63 in red and nuclei in blue. Scale bars, 100 μm.