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1 Department of Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
2 Department of Cell Biology and Physiology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
3 Department of Pharmacology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
4 Department of Urology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
5 Department of Surgery, Division of Urology, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: pezzone{at}pitt.edu.
The existence of a pacemaker system in the urinary tract capable of orchestrating the movement of filtrated urine from the ureteral pelvis to the distal ureter and lower urinary tract seems intuitive. The coordinated activity necessary for such movement or "peristalsis" would likely require an intricate network of cells with pacemaker-like activity, as is the case with the Interstitial Cells of Cajal (ICC) of the gut. We investigated whether these putative pacemaker cells of the urinary tract are antigenically similar to ICC of the gut by utilizing immunofluorescence staining for c-kit, a cell-surface marker specific for ICC. Ureteral, urinary bladder and urethral tissues were harvested from female mice of the WBB6F1 strain, and fixed sections were prepared and stained for c-kit. Cell networks composed of stellate-appearing, c-kit-positive ICC-like cells were found in the lamina propria and at the interface of the inner longitudinal and outer circular muscle layers of the ureteral pelvis, but not in the urinary bladder or urethra. Thus, like the gut, c-kit-positive ICC-like cells are present in the urinary tract, but appear to be restricted to the proximal ureter in this mouse species.
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