Background
Severe burn injury is known to perturb hematopoietic and immune cell homeostasis. These perturbations can decrease the efficacy of immune responses to infection, which is a frequent problem for burned patients. Innate immune responses following severe burn injury are associated with impairments in the functions of natural killer cells, neutrophils, and antigen presenting cells, all of which are crucial for the establishment of a normal response to infection [
1‐
4]. The production of various innate immune cells from their hematopoietic precursors is also impacted by burn injury. It has been reported that burn injury with sepsis causes a reduction in the proliferative capacity of bone marrow progenitor cells that give rise to granulocytes, and a relative increase in monocytopoiesis [
5,
6]. Others have reported that burn injury alone increases numbers of monocyte progenitor cells and the production of inflammatory monocytes and also increases granulocyte progenitors and neutrophils in the spleen [
7,
8]. Transient decreases in bone marrow neutrophil numbers, subsequent to neutrophil egress into the circulation after burn injury, have also been reported [
9]. Muthu
et al. demonstrated an impairment, induced by both burn injury alone and burn with sepsis, in the
in vitro differentiation of myeloid dendritic cells (DCs) from monocyte progenitor cells [
10].
Hematopoietic cytokines that regulate leukocyte generation can also be altered by burn injury. Granulocyte-colony stimulating factor (G-CSF), which promotes neutrophil production, has been shown to be elevated following severe burns in both murine models of injury and in human burn patients. Similarly, granulocyte macrophage-colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF), a cytokine that promotes production and activation of neutrophils and macrophages, is also elevated in burn patients and murine models [
7,
11‐
13]. Fms-like tyrosine kinase-3 ligand (Flt3L) is a hematopoietic cytokine that promotes the production of DCs from both myeloid and lymphoid lineage-committed progenitor cells. We have previously reported that human Flt3L can be used to enhance DC production in burn-injured mice and increase resistance to infections [
14,
15]. While treatments with exogenous Flt3L are protective, the effects of burn injury on endogenous Flt3L levels are not known. This study was conducted to determine the effects of burn injury alone, or following wound infection, on endogenous levels of murine Flt3L.
Discussion
This study demonstrates that levels of endogenous Flt3L in the circulation, the spleen, and in wound draining lymph nodes are not significantly altered within a week following a severe burn injury. Similarly, Flt3L levels were not significantly altered when the burn injury was complicated by a wound infection. This is in contrast to other hematopoietic cytokines such as G-CSF and GM-CSF, both of which are significantly elevated in the circulation after burns [
7,
11‐
13]. Cytokine responses to burn injury are most pronounced during the first week, when injured tissues produce inflammatory mediators that can activate systemic inflammation. G-CSF and GM-CSF have been associated with regulation of inflammatory responses whereas there is little known about regulation of endogenous Flt3L production. It has been reported that translocation of Flt3L from intracellular stores to the surface of T cells occurs following hematopoietic failure induced by chemoradiation but there are no reports of Flt3L responses during inflammation [
19]. Since severe burns, and especially wound infections, are known to induce systemic inflammatory responses, the data presented here suggest that endogenous Flt3L production is not associated with inflammatory responses but is mostly involved in maintenance of hematopoietic homeostasis.
Consistent with steady levels of Flt3L following severe burn injury, there were no significant changes noted in the numbers of splenic DCs after burn injury, nor in the proportions of various DC subtypes. It has already been noted that severe sepsis induces depletion of DCs, but this response was not observed following burn injury alone, or during the early responses to a burn wound infection. Muthu
et al. demonstrated an impairment, induced by both burn injury alone and burn with sepsis, in the capacity of monocyte progenitor cells to differentiate into myeloid dendritic cells
in vitro [
10]. However, DCs are produced
in vivo from multiple precursor pools, and production from each is differentially regulated and produces phenotypically distinct populations. In addition to differentiating from monocytes in response to the cytokines GM-CSF and IL-4, DCs also arise from progenitor cells in other tissues. In response to GM-CSF and TNF-α, myeloid DCs can be induced from cells in the bone marrow, cord blood, and peripheral blood [
20]. DCs can also arise from lymphoid tissues, including the thymus, spleen, and lymph nodes in response to similar cytokine signals. In this study, we saw no effects of burn injury on the relative proportions of CD8
+ (lymphoid-related), CD11b
+ (myeloid-related), or plasmacytoid DC subsets. Other studies have shown sepsis-induced depletion of DCs in lymphoid tissues, including the lymph nodes and spleen [
16,
17]. We do not see any alteration in DC numbers or function during the early stages of wound infection but it is likely that depletion of DCs would follow the onset of severe sepsis. Similarly, it is possible that endogenous Flt3L levels would be altered by severe sepsis, but only early responses to wound infection preceding sepsis were examined.
Similarly, we saw no effect of burn on the ability of DCs to promote Th1-type cytokine production. DCs from burned mice were able to induce IFN-γ production by T cells similarly to DCs from sham mice. While IFN-γ production was impaired after burn injury, our results demonstrate that this impairment is not due to altered DCs but rather to T cells. It has been proposed that enhanced IL-10 production contributes to suppressed IFN-γ production after burn injury, as neutralization of IL-10 can restore IFN-γ levels, while others have suggested that suppressed Th1 responses are due not to increased IL-10, but rather to a global T cell anergy resulting from insufficient activation by DCs secondary to decreased differentiation of DCs from monocyte precursors after burn injury [
18,
21,
22]. We did not investigate either of these potential causes as a source of impaired IFN-γ, since burn-associated impairments were only detected in co-cultures containing T cells from burned mice, but not DCs, which were the focus of the study. While alterations in DC promotion of IFN-γ production were not noted in this study, potential effects of burn injury on other DC functions cannot be excluded.
Similar to Flt3L, Gamelli and colleagues reported that the levels of endogenous G-CSF are also not impaired by burn wound infection [
7,
11‐
13]. In fact, G-CSF levels have shown to be significantly increased in the bone marrow, spleen, and serum of burn and burn-infected animals. Consistent with these findings, we demonstrate that G-CSF levels are significantly elevated in the wound-draining lymph nodes, the spleen, and the sera of burned and burned infected mice in our model. Interestingly, contraindicative to this finding, burn and infection lead to enhanced neutropenia. It has been suggested that the presence of increased G-CSF values and numbers of granulocyte-macrophage colony-forming cells (GM-CFCs), along with the simultaneous presence of neutropenia in burn and burn-infected animals is due to other immune alterations resulting from burn injury, including reduced G-CFC responsiveness to G-CSF, altered cell-cycle of GM-CFCs by increased levels of PGE
2, and a shift from granulocytopoiesis to monocytopoiesis, rather than an impairment in endogenous G-CSF levels. It is thought that the benefits of exogenous G-CSF treatment after burn injury is due to a reversal of these impaired immune responses [
13]. Similarly, the finding that endogenous Flt3L levels are not changed with burn or infection suggests that the previously reported protective effects provided by exogenous Flt3L treatments after burn injury are mediated through enhancement of impaired immune functions, rather than a restoration of impaired Flt3L levels.
Conclusion
Treatment with exogenous Flt3L after burn injury increases survival in a mouse model of lethal burn wound infection. This study sought to determine if endogenous Flt3L levels are altered by burn injury and burn wound infection. The results show that neither burn injury nor post-burn wound infection alter endogenous Flt3L levels. Additionally, DC numbers and function are not impaired by burn injury alone. Therefore, it appears that the benefits of Flt3L treatment following burn injury are not due to a restoration of burn-induced endogenous Flt3L deficiency. Rather, Flt3L treatments following burn injury likely provide protection against mortality due to infection through supplementary enhancement of DC production and differentiation, along with enhancement of the immune response to infection.
Methods
Burn Model
All animal procedures were consistent with the National Institutes of Health guidelines for the care and use of experimental animals and were approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee at the University of Texas Medical Branch. A full-thickness scald burn was used as previously described [
15]. Briefly, male BALB/c mice, 6-8 weeks of age, were anesthetized with 2.5% isoflurane, and shaved on the dorsal and lateral surfaces. Mice were placed on their backs and secured in a protective template with an opening corresponding to 35% of the total body surface area, and the exposed skin was immersed for 10 seconds in 97°C water. Lactated Ringers solution (2 ml) was injected i.p. and buprenorphine (2 mg/kg) was given for analgesia. Sham-injured mice were handled identically except for immersion in water.
Infection
P. aeruginosa, a common source of infections in burn patients, was purchased from American Type Culture Collection (ATCC#19660) [
23‐
25]. Cultures were grown in tryptic soy broth and diluted in sterile saline solution for wound inoculation. Two days prior to sacrifice, a lethal dose of
P. aeruginosa was applied to the surface of the wound. Blood, spleens, and wound-draining lymph nodes were harvested at various times after injury. Mice harvested at 2 days post-burn were inoculated with 500 cfu on the day of injury; those harvested at 5 days post-burn were inoculated with 8000 cfu 3 days after injury; and mice harvested at 7 days post-burn were inoculated with 10
4 cfu 5 days after injury. Each of these doses induces a comparable level of mortality when applied to the wound at the respective days after injury [
14,
15]. This design permitted examination of responses to burn injury, with and without infection, at similar time points and kept the lethality of infection similar between groups.
Endogenous Flt3L Measurements
Flt3L levels were measured in sera and spleen and lymph node homogenates using the Quantikine Mouse Flt-3 Ligand Immunoassay by R&D Systems according to manufacturer recommendations. Spleens and lymph nodes were prepared for ELISA by homogenization in RIPA buffer (25 mM Tris-HCl, pH 7.6, 150 mM NaCl, 1% NP-40, 1% sodium deoxycholate, 0.1% SDS) supplemented with complete protease inhibitor cocktail (Roche Applied Science, Indianapolis, IN), followed by centrifugation and measurement of proteins in the supernatant. Proteins were measured using the Bio-Rad protein dye reagent (Bio-Rad, Hercules, CA).
G-CSF Measurements
G-CSF levels were measured in the sera and spleen and lymph node homogenates using the Mouse G-CSF ELISA Kit by R&D Systems according to manufacturer recommendations. Skin, spleen, and lymph nodes were prepared for ELISA by homogenization in RIPA buffer (25 mM Tris-HCL, ph 7.6, 150 mM NaCl, 1% sodium deoxycholate, 0.1% SDS) supplemented with complete protease inhibitor cocktail (Roche Applied Science, Indianapolis, IN).
Dendritic Cell Measurements
Spleens were harvested 5 days after sham or burn injuries and single cell suspensions were prepared as previously described [
18,
26]. To determine DC numbers, cell suspensions were incubated at 4°C for 20 minutes with fluorescently-conjugated antibodies specific for class II MHC and CD11c, CD8, CD11b, and mPDCA-1, washed in PBS, fixed in 1% buffered (ph 7.8) paraformaldehyde, then analyzed on a FACSort flow cytometer (Becton Dickenson; Franklin Lakes, NJ). Specific staining was determined by comparison with appropriate antibody isotype controls. Antibodies were purchased from BD Biosciences (San Jose, CA). MHC-II
+/CD11c
high cells were considered to be DCs.
For DC-T cell cocultures, CD11c+ DCs were positively selected using magnetic beads and separation columns (Miltenyi Biotec; Auburn, CA). Naïve T cells (CD4+/CD62L+/CD44low) were isolated using enrichment columns from R&D Systems (Minneapolis, MN). DCs were activated in vitro overnight with heat-killed P. aeruginosa, washed, then co-cultured with T cells (104 dendritic cells:105 T cells) for 5 days. Cultures were stimulated with Concanavalin A (1 mg/ml) and media were harvested 24 hours later for measurement of IFN-γ levels by ELISA (eBioscience, San Diego, CA).
Statistics
All statistical analyses were performed using GraphPad Prism version 4.00 for Windows, GraphPad Software (San Diego, CA). Multiple groups were compared using one-way analysis of variance followed by a Tukey's multiple comparison test. Two groups were compared using a two-tailed, unpaired t-test. A p value of ≤ 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant.
Authors' contributions
JB participated in the design of the study, assisted with the DC-T cell co-cultures, data analyses, and drafting of the manuscript. WC carried out and/or assisted with all of the experiments for this study. TT-K conceived of the study, participated in its design and coordination, assisted in data analyses, performed the statistical analyses, and assisted in drafting of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.