Inflammatory proteins and neutrophil extracellular traps increase in burn blister fluid after 24 hours post-burn

Tuo Zang¹, Mark Fear², Tony Parker¹, Andrew Holland³, Lisa Martin², Donna Langley¹, Roy Kimble⁴, Fiona Wood^2,5, Leila Cuttle¹,
¹Queensland University Of Technology, School of Biomedical Sciences, South Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
²Burn Injury Research Unit, School of Biomedical Sciences, The University of Western Australia, Perth, Western Australia, Australia
³The Children’s Hospital at Westmead Burns Unit, Kids Research Institute, and The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
⁴Children’s Health Queensland, Queensland Children’s Hospital, South Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
⁵Burns Service of Western Australia, Perth Children’s Hospital and Fiona Stanley Hospital, Perth, Western Australia, Australia

Abstract

Burn wound blister fluid is a valuable matrix for understanding the biological pathways associated with burn injury. In this study, 152 blister fluid samples collected from paediatric burn wounds at two different hospitals were analysed using mass spectrometry proteomic techniques. The protein abundance profile at different days post-burn indicated that there were more proteins associated with cellular damage/repair in the first 24 hours, and after this point there were more proteins associated with antimicrobial defence and inflammation. The inflammatory proteins persisted at a high level in the blister fluid for more than 7 days. This may indicate that removal of burn blisters prior to two days post-burn is optimal to prevent excessive or prolonged inflammation in the wound environment. Additionally, many proteins associated with the neutrophil extracellular trap (NET) pathway were increased post-burn, further implicating NETs in the post-burn inflammatory response. NET inhibitors may be a potential treatment to reduce post-burn inflammation and coagulation pathology and enhance burn wound healing outcomes.

Biography

A/Prof Leila Cuttle is the head of the Burns and Trauma Laboratory at QUT in Brisbane. She is based at the Centre for Children’s Health Research next to the Queensland Children’s Hospital. Leila’s lab examines biomarkers associated with burn wound healing and scarring.