Department of Biotechnology, Jožef Stefan Institute, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Ljubljana, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Int J Mol Sci. 2020 May 15;21(10):3502. doi: 10.3390/ijms21103502.
The aging of organisms leads to a decreased ability of tissue to regenerate after injury. The regeneration of the bladder urothelium after induced desquamation with biopolymer chitosan has been studied in young mice but not in old mice. Chitosan is a suitable inducer of urothelial desquamation because it is known to be non-toxic. We used chitosan for desquamation of urothelial cells in order to compare the dynamics of urothelial regeneration after injury between young and old mice. Our aim was to determine whether the urothelial function and structure of old mice is restored as fast as in young mice, and to evaluate the inflammatory response due to chitosan treatment. We discovered that the urothelial function restored comparably fast in both age groups and that the urothelium of young and old mice recovered within 5 days after injury, although the onset of proliferation and differentiation appeared later in old mice. Acute inflammation markers showed some differences in the inflammatory response in young versus old mice, but in both age groups, chitosan caused short-term acute inflammation. In conclusion, the restoration of urothelial function is not impaired in old mice, but the regeneration of the urothelial structure in old mice slightly lags behind the regeneration in young mice.
生物体的衰老会导致组织在受伤后再生能力下降。在年轻小鼠中已经研究了生物聚合物壳聚糖诱导脱落后膀胱尿路上皮的再生，但在老年小鼠中尚未研究。壳聚糖是一种合适的尿路上皮脱落诱导剂，因为它已知是无毒的。我们使用壳聚糖使尿路上皮细胞脱落，以便比较年轻和老年小鼠受伤后尿路上皮再生的动力学。我们的目的是确定老年小鼠的尿路上皮功能和结构是否像年轻小鼠一样快速恢复，并评估壳聚糖处理引起的炎症反应。我们发现，两组的尿路上皮功能恢复速度相当快，并且年轻和老年小鼠的尿路上皮在受伤后 5 天内恢复，尽管老年小鼠的增殖和分化开始较晚。急性炎症标志物显示在年轻和老年小鼠的炎症反应中存在一些差异，但在两个年龄组中，壳聚糖均引起短期急性炎症。总之，老年小鼠的尿路上皮功能恢复不受损害，但老年小鼠的尿路上皮结构再生略落后于年轻小鼠。
