Urothelial bladder afferents selectively project to L6/S1 levels and are more peptidergic than those projecting to the T13/L1 levels in female rats

Buffie Clodfelder-Miller; Jennifer J DeBerry; Timothy J Ness

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e18495

Urothelial bladder afferents selectively project to L6/S1 levels and are more peptidergic than those projecting to the T13/L1 levels in female rats

Heliyon. 2023 Jul 20;9(8):e18495. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e18495. eCollection 2023 Aug.

Authors

Buffie Clodfelder-Miller¹, Jennifer J DeBerry¹, Timothy J Ness¹

Affiliation

¹ Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, UK.

Abstract

This neuroanatomical study in four, adult, Sprague-Dawley female rats quantified the number of Urothelial (labeled by intravesical DiI dye administration) and Non-Urothelial (labeled by intraparenchymal injection of Fast blue dye) bladder primary afferent neurons (bPANs) located in the T13, L1, L6 and S1 dorsal root ganglia. Additional immunohistochemical labeling using antibodies to detect either Substance P or CGRP further characterized the bPAN samples as peptidergic or non-peptidergic. Cell counts indicated that Urothelial bPANs were more common at the L6/S1 levels and more likely to be identified as peptidergic when compared with bPANs characterized at T13/L1 levels and with Non-Urothelial bPANs. These studies provide additional evidence that at least two distinct neuronal populations, with differing localization of sensory terminals, differing peptide content, and differing projections to the central nervous system, are responsible for bladder sensation.

Keywords: Bladder; CGRP; Primary afferents; Substance P.

Grants and funding

R01 DK051413/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States