Non-severe burn injury increases cancer incidence in mice and has long-term impacts on the activation and function of T cells

Prediction of immune molecules activity during burn wound healing among elderly patients: in-silico analyses: experimental research

Introduction

Burn injuries lead to dysregulation of immune molecules, impacting cellular and humoral immune pathways. This study aims to determine the prediction of immune molecule activity during burn wound healing among elderly patients.

Methods

The current study utilized the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database to extract the proper gene set. Also, the literature review was conducted in the present study to find immune signatures. The study used the "enrich r" website to identify the biological functions of extracted genes. The critical gene modules related to mortality were identified using the weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) R package.

Results

The appreciated GSE was extracted. According to the data, the most upregulated signatures were related to natural killer (NK) cells, and the most downregulated signatures were associated with M1 macrophages. Also, the results of WGCNA have shown that the most related gene modules (P<107 and score 0.17) to mortality were investigated, and the modules 100 first genes were extracted. Additionally, the enrich r analysis has demonstrated related pathways, including the immune process, including regulation of histamine secreted from mast cell (P<0.05), T helper 17 cell differentiation (P<0.05), and autophagy (P<0.05) were obtained. Finally, by network analysis, the critical gene "B3GNT5" were obtained (degree>ten and "betweenness and centrality">30 were considered).

Conclusion

The study identified significant changes in macrophage and NK cell expression patterns post-burn injury, linking them to potential improvements in clinical outcomes and wound healing. The gene B3GNT5, associated with mortality, was highlighted as a key marker for prognostic evaluation.

The incidence of cancer following hospitalisation for a burn injury in Scotland 2009-2019: A retrospective cohort study

BACKGROUND

Studies suggest increased occurrence of cancer in persons who have experienced a burn injury with hospital admission.

OBJECTIVE

To determine the incidence of cancer among those hospitalised for burn injuries in Scotland compared with a similar group without a history of burn injury hospitalisation.

METHOD

A retrospective cohort design was used to compare cancer (ICD10 C00-97, excluding C44) incidence in two groups: 6805 burn injury patients discharged from Scottish hospitals between 2009 and 2019, and 25,946 subjects from the general population who were matched to burn patients by sex, year of birth, and degree of social deprivation. Cancer incidence was identified from the Scottish cancer registry. Cox proportional hazard regression was used to model time to cancer incidence adjusting for age, sex, degree of deprivation and presence of a comorbidity. Cancer risk was presented as standardised incidence ratios (SIRs) and hazard ratios (HR).

RESULTS

We found a higher prevalence of pre-existing conditions, particularly alcohol abuse among patients with burns. Pre-existing cancers were more common in the burn cohort (3.5%) than the comparison group (1.7%) and were excluded from further analysis. Over a median follow-up of 4-5 years, a total of 236 (3.5%) burn patients and 969 (3.7%) persons in the comparison group were diagnosed with cancer. At 0-6 months the cancer SIR for burn patients was 1.88 95% CI (1.40-2.52). After excluding the first six months of follow-up, the overall incidence of cancer was marginally elevated in burn patients (SIR 1.04, 95% CI 0.90-1.19, p = 0.62) and not statistically different from the incidence in comparison subjects (adjusted HR 1.03, 95% CI 0.88-1.21, p = 0.71).

CONCLUSIONS

Patients that suffer burn injury have a higher incidence of cancer than the general population and a group matched by age, sex and degree of deprivation. A higher incidence of adverse health-related behaviours such as smoking, alcohol use and pre-existing health conditions among many patients that suffer a burn most likely explain this observed increase. Any persisting inflammatory or immune dysfunction following burn injury is unlikely to account for the increase in cancers in this study.

Characterization of Cell Type Abundance and Gene Expression Timeline from Burned Skin Bulk Transcriptomics by Deconvolution

Currently, no timeline of cell heterogeneity in thermally injured skin has been reported. In this study, we proposed an approach to deconvoluting cell type abundance and expression from skin bulk transcriptomics with cell type signature matrix constructed by combining independent normal skin and peripheral blood scRNA-seq datasets. Using CIBERSORTx group mode deconvolution, we identified perturbed cell type fractions and cell type-specific gene expression in three stages postthermal injury. We found an increase in cell proportions and cell type-specific gene expression perturbation of neutrophils, macrophages, and endothelial cells and a decrease in CD4+ T cells, keratinocytes, melanocyte, and fibroblast cells, and cell type-specific gene expression perturbation postburn injury. Keratinocyte, fibroblast, and macrophage up regulated genes were dynamically enriched in overlapping and distinct Gene Ontology biological processes including acute phase response, leukocyte migration, metabolic, morphogenesis, and development process. Down-regulated genes were enriched in Wnt signaling, mesenchymal cell differentiation, gland and axon development, epidermal morphogenesis, and fatty acid and glucose metabolic process. We noticed an increase in the expression of CCL7, CCL2, CCL20, CCR1, CCR5, CCXL8, CXCL2, CXCL3, MMP1, MMP8, MMP3, IL24, IL6, IL1B, IL18R1, and TGFBR1 and a decrease in expression of CCL27, CCR10, CCR6, CCR8, CXCL9, IL37, IL17, IL7, IL11R, IL17R, TGFBR3, FGFR1-4, and IGFR1 in keratinocytes and/or fibroblasts. The inferred timeline of wound healing and CC and CXC genes in keratinocyte was validated on independent dataset GSE174661 of purified keratinocytes. The timeline of different cell types postburn may facilitate therapeutic timing.

Potential Effect of Glutamine in the Improvement of Intestinal Stem Cell Proliferation and the Alleviation of Burn-Induced Intestinal Injury via Activating YAP: A Preliminary Study

Burn injury is a common form of traumatic injury that leads to high mortality worldwide. A severe burn injury usually induces gut barrier dysfunction, partially resulting from the impairment in the proliferation and self-renewal of intestinal stem cells (ISCs) post burns. As a main energy substance of small intestinal enterocytes, glutamine (Gln) is important for intestinal cell viability and growth, while its roles in ISCs-induced regeneration after burns are still unclear. To demonstrate the potential effects of Gln in improving ISCs proliferation and alleviating burn-induced intestinal injury, in this study, we verified that Gln significantly alleviated small intestine injury in burned mice model. It showed that Gln could significantly decrease the ferroptosis of crypt cells in the ileum, promote the proliferation of ISCs, and repair the crypt. These effects of Gln were also confirmed in the mouse small intestine organoids model. Further research found that Yes-associated protein (YAP) is suppressed after burn injury, and Gln could improve cell proliferation and accelerate the renewal of the damaged intestinal mucosal barrier after burns by activating YAP. YAP is closely associated with the changes in intestinal stem cell proliferation after burn injury and could be served as a potential target for severe burns.