IntroductionThe purpose of the study is to understand whether the cholinergic stimulation is important, not only in inducing contraction of the detrusor muscle, but also in modulating the proliferation of smooth muscle cells. These results could help to better understand the role of antimuscarinic drugs, which are currently used for the treatment of many urological diseases.Patients and MethodsPrimary cultures were prepared from biopsies of human detrusor muscle of subjects >65 years. From the cell culture set-up for each patient, mRNA was extracted and both the gene expression and the influence of increasing passages on the expression of muscarinic receptor subtypes were evaluated by semi-quantitative and quantitative PCR (RT-PCR and Q-RT-PCR). The rate of cell proliferation induced by cholinergic drugs was assessed by the evaluation of the [3H]-thymidine incorporation.ResultsThe gene expression analysis demonstrated that the range of expression of muscarinic subtypes in human detrusor smooth muscle cells (HDSMCs) is M2 > M3 > M1 > M4 >> M5. The exposure to the cholinergic agonist carbachol induced a concentration-dependent increase in cell proliferation rate. The pharmacological characterization indicated that this effect was mainly mediated by the receptor subtypes M3 and M2.DiscussionThe cholinergic stimulation led to an increase in HDSMC proliferation, suggesting that this phenomenon might be involved in the pathogenic mechanism through which the cervico-urethral obstruction causes a detrusor hypertrophy, followed by a loss of function. These results could then provide an indication of the use of antimuscarinic drugs in the treatment of lower urinary tract disorders.