Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are among the most common bacterial infections. They usually require treatment with antibiotics, and almost a quarter of treated cases lead to recurrent infection. The vast majority of UTIs are caused by a subspecies of the bacterium Escherichia coli, which infect cells that line the bladder wall and form what are known as “intracellular bacterial communities”.
The “communities” repeatedly rupture and bacteria re-enter neighboring cells, eventually killing off the so-called “umbrella cells” that line the outermost layer of the bladder’s epithelium.