Together, our results reveal that UPEC selectively utilize genes important for autophagosome formation to persist in the urothelium, and that the presence of the T300A variant in ATG16L1 is associated with changes in urothelial vesicle trafficking, which disrupts the ability of UPEC to persist, thereby limiting the risk of recurrent UTIs.
Together, our results show that Atg16L1 deficiency confers protection in vivo to the host against both acute and latent UPEC infection, suggest that deficiency in a key autophagy protein can be protective against infection in an animal model of one of the most common diseases of women worldwide, and may have significant clinical implications for understanding the etiology of recurrent UTIs.