Characterization of the systemic kinetics of effector molecules of the epithelial immune response and microRNA in severe burn injuries and sepsis

Status:

ongoing

Aims:

There are different approaches how a systemic activation of the innate immune system after severe burns could take place. In this context, both human host defense peptides (hHDPs), as part of the innate immune response, as well as microRNAs (miRNAs) play a decisive role. While the importance of miRNAs is currently the subject of various research projects, the role of exosomes in the systemic activation of the congenital immune system is largely unknown.

The aim of this study is to characterize the immune responses and systemic kinetics of effector molecules (hHDPs), exosomes and microRNAs after burn injuries and sepsis thus to obtain possible markers for the severity of the injury, the development and course of sepsis.

We hope that the combination of the chosen targets and the methods of investigation will allow us to establish a clear relationship between the parameters and thus also to achieve a separation between the initial trauma and time related changes that are occurring.

Activities/Methods:

• Information of patients and volunteers and obtaining of written consents for study inclusion
• Inclusion of the 21 subjects for the healthy group
• Inclusion of patients in the groups of severely burn injured patients
• Preservation and anonymization of clinical data
• Extraction, storage and blinding of serum samples
• Preparation of serum samples
• Isolation and purification of mRNA, protein and exosomes
• Qualitative and quantitative measurement of miRNA from serum
• Qualitative and quantitative measurement miRNA from exosomes
• ELISA Measurements for HDP determination from serum samples
• Evaluation of the total data sets of the healthy group (n=21)
• Creation of time dependent expression profiles from the samples of severely burn injured patients
• Statistical assessment of the healthy group and correlation to clinical data

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