Home » Helpfulness

Experimental anesthesiology – university hospital ulm

Experimental anesthesiology - university hospital ulm

Our profile

What we do

The Section Experimental Anesthesiology of Prof. dr. E. Marion Schneider pursues monocytes and immature dendritic cells in septic as well as in solid tumor patients, which can be enriched by cell techniques of peripheral blood, bone marrow and cerebrospinal fluid. Search immature dendritic cells are resistant to maturation signals and manifest impressive hemophagocytic properties. Function and phenotype support the concept of immunological anergy in sepsis and malignancies.

Since 2007, Eos-FP, a novel fluorescent dye isolated from a marine organism by Joerg Wiedenmann (Univ. Souphampton, U.K., formerly Ulm University), is applied to study phagocytosis using Eos-FP transfected bacteria. Early after ingestion, bacteria with red and green fluorescent light. After fusion of the phasome with acidic lysosomes, the red fluorescence is lost and partially degraded bacteria emit only green fluorescent light.

Many of which are monogenic, or manifest HLH during immune dysfunction and states of viral re-activation. The biological material: mononuclear cells, bone marrow, cell lines, fibroblasts and endothelial cells, as well as sera and DNA are derived from > 2000 individual patients’ samples and 200 – 300 families. Flow cytometric analyzes, ex vivo stimulation protocols, plasma cytokines and cellular cytolysis assays have been encoded in the genes for a purinergic ion channel receptor, P2RX7, the Toll-like-receptors 2 and 4 , Perforin, and enzymes related to oxidative stress. All SNPs were determined by pyrosequencing technologies. A recently detected SNP haplotype appears to be relevant to the manifestation of severe sepsis. Phenotypically, P2RX7 is highly expressed in immature dendritic cells of patients. Upon activation by ATP in vivo, such as by trauma, P2RX7 generates a calcium signal and thus amplifies inflammatory signaling pathways by the secretion of IL-1β.

Another field of interest concentrates on ultrastructural studies of patients’ derived immature dendritic cells and their unique characteristic in autophagy. ATP stimulates the expression of LC3, a component of the autophagosome, as determined by flow cytometry.

Schneider, E.M., Lorenz, M.R., Walther, P. Autophagy as a Hallmark of Hemophagocytic Diseases. In “Autophagy in Health and Diseases.” (N.V. Gorbunov (ed.) NOVA Publishers N.Y. 2011.

We provide knowledge of immune interaction pathways leading to immune incompetence in major inflammatory diseases. With our team, we developed a mitochondrial SNP typing array for mitochondrial mutations in a European Research Project in FP5. For patients with hemophagocytic diseases and macrophage activation syndromes, we provide short and long-term assays for Natural Killer Cell Functional Analysis. Our group participates in the STREP “GenOSept” of FP6 to establish a SNP platform for the detection of severe sepsis in adult patients suffering from bacterial infections or non-infectious complications such as pancreatitis. In FP7, Marion Schneider and her team were responsible for the development of a single cell-based multiplex PCR to detect Epstein Barr virus (EBV) in immature dendritic cells, called QuAGSiC (quantitative analysis of genes in single cells). In collaboration with Alberto Pasquarelli (Institute for Electronic Components and Circuits, University of Ulm), a diamond-based chip has been set up to detect potentiometric as well as amperometric measurements of P2RX7 stimulated cells)..

Recently, our group focused on the calcium-dependent formation of neutrophil derived extracellular traps (NETs). NETosis by neutrophils is an excellent indicator to follow clinical changes in patients with sepsis. Infectious complications as well as traumatic injury lead to massive NETformation and correlate with biomarkers such as LBP (liposolysaccharide binding protein), IL-1β, IL-6, IL-8, or TNF-α, leukocyte increase, and CRP.

Related Posts

Like this post? Please share to your friends:
Christina Cherry
Leave a Reply

;-) :| :x :twisted: :smile: :shock: :sad: :roll: :razz: :oops: :o :mrgreen: :lol: :idea: :grin: :evil: :cry: :cool: :arrow: :???: :?: :!: