What are Urinary Tract Infections?

Urinary Tract Infections are bacterial infections affecting the epithelium lining the organs of the urinary tract, including the kidney, ureters, urinary bladder and the urethra. These infections occur when bacteria enter the urinary tract via the urethra and begin multiplying. They can be divided into the following categories based on the organs affected:

1. Upper UTI: These infections can be divided into pyelonephritis, renal abscess, and Perinephric abscess.
2. Lower UTI: These infections can be divided into cystitis, urethritis, and prostatitis.

The most common bacterial species that cause Urinary Tract Infections are Escherichia coli K-12, Proteus mirabilis, and Klebsiella pneumoniae.

Current statistics on Urinary Tract Infections

Urinary Tract Infections are the third most prevalent bacterial infections and the second most diagnosed infectious disease worldwide. Based on the data gathered by Global Burden of Diseases (GHDx), India had showed a total of nearly 100 million cases in the year 2019 and about 55,500 deaths the same year.

With the global data available regarding deaths caused by UTIs from the same source, we generated a heat map with the mortality rates normalized to the respective countries.

Why did we choose UTIs?

Lack of sanitary hygiene, awareness of UTI and the unavailability of easy-to-use diagnosis methods at the point-of-care leads to the high prevalence of UTIs, particularly in the rural set-up. Currently, only antibody-based testing methods are available for the identification of uropathogenic bacteria, which require the availability of a cold chain and technical expertise in performing the culture of the urine samples and the analysis of these cultures. Due to the lack of such infrastructure and laboratory personnel in the rural set-up, UTIs often are overlooked or misdiagnosed and the patients are prescribed common antipyretics and broad-spectrum antibiotics without UTI specific drug administration.

Apt4UTI

Our project aims at developing an aptamer-based solution for the detection of uropathogenic bacteria at the point-of-care. This diagnostic toolkit has the potential to detect several uropathogenic bacterial strains due to a multiplex aptamer tuned to accuracy by repeated testing against negative controls. The aptamer generated is verified via both in vitro and in silico methods. This toolkit is accurate, rapid and efficient, does not need a cold chain, and can be employed in regions without a laboratory set-up.

Our Promotional Video

Urinary Tract Infection is the third most prevalent infectious disease worldwide. The lack of awareness regarding its symptoms has led to Chronic UTIs which cause recurrence, antibiotic resistance and kidney infections. The current diagnostic methods include antibody-based assays which require cold-chain, technical expertise and laboratory conditions. We therefore propose a novel, cost-effective and point-of-care solution for the detection of UTI-causing bacteria using an aptamer-based strategy.