AccScience Publishing / IJB / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/IJB026240252
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RESEARCH ARTICLE

Spatially defined bioprinting of detrusor and sphincter mimetics uncovers paracrine-mediated contraction dyssynergia

Weilun Zhang1 Yuxin Zhang1 Chengzhi Zhang1 Haowei Song1 Yuexian Liu1 Yutong Li1 Yipeng Zhao1 Zhen Zhang1 Wenbo Zhai1 Yi Rong2 Jingtang Hu2 Weibing Shuang2 Xueling Yan1 Junya Shi1 Xiaodong Wen1 Lei Pang1*
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1 Department of Urology, Fifth Hospital of Shanxi Medical University (Shanxi Provincial People’s Hospital), Taiyuan, Shanxi, China
2 Department of Urology, First Hospital of Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan, Shanxi, China
Received: 11 June 2026 | Revised: 7 July 2026 | Accepted: 13 July 2026 | Published online: 13 July 2026
© 2026 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract

Detrusor-sphincter dyssynergia (DSD) represents a core functional impairment of the neurogenic bladder following spinal cord injury; however, no model exists that recapitulates the three-dimensional tissue architecture of the detrusor-sphincter unit and enables analysis of cell–cell communication in vitro. In this study, an innovative spatially defined bioprinting strategy was developed to construct parallel-aligned tissue structures of detrusor smooth muscle cells and urethral sphincter fibroblasts. By precisely controlling the inter-tissue distance to 200 μm, a microenvironment that permits paracrine signaling but prevents direct cell–cell contact was developed. Upon stimulation with inflammatory factors mimicking the pathological state after spinal cord injury, this model enabled, for the first time, visualization and quantitative analysis of the transition of detrusor contractions from synchronous to asynchronous and out-of-phase under the regulation of sphincter-derived paracrine signals. Mechanistic investigations revealed that sphincter fibroblasts specifically upregulate and secrete connective tissue growth factor (CTGF) under pathological conditions, which induces aberrant detrusor contractions via the integrin αvβ3/focal adhesion kinase/extracellular signal-regulated kinase signaling pathway. Neutralizing antibodies against CTGF or the clinical drug mirabegron significantly restored contractile coordination. This study not only provides the first quantifiable in vitro dual-tissue model for DSD research but also uncovers a local inter-tissue communication disorder mechanism independent of neural innervation, opening new avenues for targeted therapy of neurogenic bladder.

Keywords
Three-dimensional bioprinting
Detrusor-sphincter dyssynergia
Paracrine signaling
Tissue engineering
Cell–cell communication
Connective tissue growth factor
Funding
This work was supported by the General Program of Shanxi Provincial Natural Science Foundation (No. 202503021211298) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (82470809).
Conflict of interest
The authors declare there are no competing interests.
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International Journal of Bioprinting, Electronic ISSN: 2424-8002 Print ISSN: 2424-7723, Published by AccScience Publishing