Single-Cell Atlas of a Rat Model of Vaginal Birth Injury induced Stress Urinary Incontinence

Stress urinary incontinence (SUI) greatly affects the daily life of numerous women and is closely related to a history of vaginal delivery and aging. We used vaginal balloon dilation to simulate vaginal birth injury in young and middle-aged rats to produce a SUI animal model, and found that young rats restored urethral structure and function well, but not the middle-aged rats. To identify the characteristics of cellular and molecular changes in the urethral microenvironment during the repair process of SUI. We profiled 51,690 individual female rat urethra cells from 24 and 48 weeks old, with or without simulated vaginal birth injury. Fourteen female Sprague-Dawley rats, aged 24 and 48 weeks, were procured from Charles River Laboratories (Wilmington, MA, USA). These rats were randomly assigned to two cohorts: (A) Young (24 weeks) and (B) middle-aged (48 weeks). Each cohort was subdivided into 3 groups: sham control (SHAM group), vaginal balloon dilation and ovariectomy (VBDO group), VBDO + BAPN (BAPN group). Each group consists of 7 rats: 6 for functional study and 1 for single cell RNA sequencing.