Steven J Bark

Abbreviations USP, Universal stress protein M. tuberculosis, Mycobacterium tuberculosis A brief introduction to mycobacterial universal stress proteins Universal stress proteins (USPs) were first identified as a new class of conserved bacterial stress-responsive proteins by Nystrom and Neidhardt in the early 1990s [[1, 2]].

1 Introduction Aging is a principal driver of disease, characterized by diminished cellular homeostasis, impaired tissue repair, and increased susceptibility to infection (López-Otín et al. 2013). Aging is detrimental in epithelial barrier tissues, which serve as the first line of defense against environmental insults.

Abstract A healthy bladder requires the homeostatic maintenance of and rapid regeneration of urothelium upon stress/injury/infection. Several factors have been identified to play important roles in urothelial development, injury and disease response, however, little is known about urothelial regulation at homeostasis.