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German Congress of Orthopaedics and Traumatology (DKOU 2023)

24. - 27.10.2023, Berlin

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Osteomyelitis is associated with increased anti-inflammatory response and immune exhaustion

Meeting Abstract

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  • presenting/speaker Surendar Jayagopi - Universitätsklinikum Bonn, Klinik & Poliklinik für Orthopädie & Unfallchirurgie, Bonn, Germany
  • Roslind Hackenberg - BG Klinik Ludwigshafen Klinik für Hand-, Plastische- und Rekonstruktive Chirurgie, Ludwigshafen, Germany
  • Fabio Schmitt Sánchez - Department of Hand, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, BG Trauma Center Ludwigshafen, Plastic and Hand Surgery, Burn Center, Ludwigshafen, Germany
  • Robert Ossendorff - Universitätsklinikum Bonn, Klinik & Poliklinik für Orthopädie & Unfallchirurgie, Bonn, Germany
  • Kristian Welle - Universitätsklinikum Bonn, Klinik & Poliklinik für Orthopädie & Unfallchirurgie, Bonn, Germany
  • Christof Burger - Universitätsklinikum Bonn, Klinik & Poliklinik für Orthopädie & Unfallchirurgie, Bonn, Germany
  • Dieter Christian Wirtz - Universitätsklinikum Bonn, Klinik & Poliklinik für Orthopädie & Unfallchirurgie, Bonn, Germany
  • Andreas Strauß - Universitätsklinikum Bonn, Klinik & Poliklinik für Orthopädie & Unfallchirurgie, Bonn, Germany
  • Frank A. Schildberg - Universitätsklinikum Bonn, Klinik & Poliklinik für Orthopädie & Unfallchirurgie, Bonn, Germany

Deutscher Kongress für Orthopädie und Unfallchirurgie (DKOU 2023). Berlin, 24.-27.10.2023. Düsseldorf: German Medical Science GMS Publishing House; 2023. DocAB37-3150

doi: 10.3205/23dkou160, urn:nbn:de:0183-23dkou1604

Published: October 23, 2023

© 2023 Jayagopi et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. See license information at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Outline

Text

Objectives: Osteomyelitis (OMS) is one of the oldest diseases known to humankind. Despite the advent of novel treatment strategies, it still poses a serious threat to humanity in the twenty-first century. The lack of understanding of the host immune system in OMS is a significant obstacle to eradicating and treating the disease. Hence, we wanted to comprehensively enumerate the systemic immune cells in the OMS using high-dimensional multiparametric flow cytometry.

Methods: We enumerated the systemic levels of various innate and adaptive immune cells in OMS patients and age- and gender-matched control subjects. Furthermore, we measured the activation and exhaustion status of the immune cells using flow cytometry. For continuous variables with a normal distribution, the student’s t test was used to compare groups, whereas the Mann-Whitney U test was used for continuous variables that did not follow a normal distribution.

Results: OMS subjects had augmented levels of the T follicular helper (Tfh) cell family, namely, total Tfh, Tfh1, and Thf17 cells. Tfh levels were positively correlated with classical memory and activated memory B cells. In addition, individuals with chronic OMS had increased levels of immunomodulatory cells (B and T regulatory cells, T follicular regulatory cells). Surprisingly, OMS decreased the expression of immune activation markers HLA-DR and CD86 while increasing the expression of immune exhaustion markers TIM-3, PD-1, VISTA, and PD-L1.

Conclusion: Immune modulation and immune exhaustion, along with increases in the TfH family, are the most important features of OMS and have great potential for the development of novel diagnostics and immunotherapies.