Bladder acellular matrix as a substrate for studying in vitro bladder smooth muscle-urothelial cell interactions

Immunohistochemistry (IHC) was utilized to examine cellular organization within the samples and conditioned media supernatants analyzed for net gelatinase activity. BAM contraction was significantly increased with co-culture. The same side co-culture configuration lead to a greater reduction in surface area than opposite side co-culture. IHC revealed enhanced SMC infiltration into BAM when co-culture was utilized. A significant increase in net gelatinase activity was also observed with the co-culture configuration. Enhanced infiltration and contractile ability of bladder SMCs with UEC co-culture may, in part, be due to an increase in gelatinase activity. The influence of bladder UECs on SMC behaviour in vitro indicates that BAM may contain some key inductive factors that serve to promote important bladder cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions.