Project description:This is a prevalence study evaluating lower urinary tract, prolapse, bowel, and sexual symptoms in women with a colorectal disorder who are planning to undergo surgery.
The purpose of this study is to identify the number of women who complain of lower urinary tract and bowel problems, including frequency, urgency, urinary incontinence, fecal incontinence, pain with intercourse, and other sexual problems prior to undergoing surgical management for a colorectal disorder.
Project description:Despite much promise to overcome drug-resistant infections, clinical studies of bacteriophage anti-bacterial therapy have failed to show durable effectiveness. Although lysogeny plays an important role in bacterial physiology, its significance in diverse microbiomes remains under-studied. Here, we tested the hypotheses that 1) urinary microbiome phage populations switch to a higher relative proportion of temperate phages and 2) the activity of the phage recombination machinery (integration / excision / transposition) is higher during human urinary tract infections (UTIs) than in non-infected urinary tracts. Using human urine, model organisms, mass spectrometry, gene expression analysis, and the phage phenotype prediction model BACPHLIP, the results support our hypotheses at the functional protein and gene level. From a human health perspective, are temperate phages part of the problem and not the defenders we wished them to be? These data support the use of lysogenic phages as a therapeutic Trojan Horses.
Project description:The autonomic nervous system is derived from the neural crest and supplies motor innervation to the smooth muscle of visceral organs, including the lower urinary tract (bladder and urethra, LUT). In rodents, autonomic innervation of the LUT is supplied by the major pelvic ganglia (PG) that lie near the neck of the bladder and proximal urethra. Compared to other autonomic ganglia, the PG are unique in that they harbor both sympathetic and parasympathetic neurons. The coordinated activity of PG neurons is critical for normal functioning of the LUT – however, surprisingly little is known about how PG neuronal diversity is established or what molecular factors control PG development. In this study we conducted transcriptome profiling of Sox10-H2BVenus+ sacral neural crest (NC) progenitors to discover candidate genes involved in PG neurogenesis.