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  • iNKT cells can effectively inhibit IL-6 production by B cells in systemic sclerosis. Cytotherapy Einhaus, J., Asteriti, E., Pecher, A., Keppeler, H., Klein, R., Schneidawind, C., Henes, J., Schneidawind, D. 2022; 24 (5): 482-488

    Abstract

    OBJECTIVE: Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a connective tissue disease with poorly understood pathogenesis and limited treatment options. Patient mortality is rooted predominantly in the development of pulmonary and cardiac complications. The overactivated immune system is assumed to sustain the inflammatory signature of this autoimmune disease. Here, we investigate the potential of immunoregulatory invariant natural killer T (iNKT) cells to inhibit proinflammatory B cell responses in an in vitro model of inflammation.METHODS: B cells from healthy volunteers (n = 17) and patients with SSc (n=15) were used for functional testing upon lipopolysaccharide (LPS) stimulation in a co-culture system with third-party iNKT cells. Cytokine production was measured with antibody-based immunoassays (ELISA) and intracellular cytokine staining.RESULTS: iNKT cells strongly inhibited the production of proinflammatory interleukin-6 by B cells upon stimulation with LPS in both healthy volunteers and patients with SSc. In a Transwell assay, cell contact between B cells and iNKT cells proved necessary for this inhibitory effect. Similarly, blocking of CD1d on the surface of B cells abolished the immunoregulatory effect of iNKT cells on B cells. B cell subsets with higher expression of CD1d, namely unswitched memory B cells, were more susceptible to iNKT cell inhibition.CONCLUSION: Our in vitro data underline the potential of iNKT cells in the control of SSc and provide a rationale for the use of novel iNKT cell-based therapeutic strategies in the context of autoimmune diseases.

    View details for DOI 10.1016/j.jcyt.2021.12.002

    View details for PubMedID 35181242

  • Integrated Single-Cell and Plasma Proteomic Modeling to Predict Surgical Site Complications: A Prospective Cohort Study. Annals of surgery Rumer, K. K., Hedou, J., Tsai, A., Einhaus, J., Verdonk, F., Stanley, N., Choisy, B., Ganio, E., Bonham, A., Jacobsen, D., Warrington, B., Gao, X., Tingle, M., McAllister, T. N., Fallahzadeh, R., Feyaerts, D., Stelzer, I., Gaudilliere, D., Ando, K., Shelton, A., Morris, A., Kebebew, E., Aghaeepour, N., Kin, C., Angst, M. S., Gaudilliere, B. 1800

    Abstract

    OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to determine whether single-cell and plasma proteomic elements of the host's immune response to surgery accurately identify patients who develop a surgical site complication (SSC) after major abdominal surgery.SUMMARY BACKGROUND DATA: SSCs may occur in up to 25% of patients undergoing bowel resection, resulting in significant morbidity and economic burden. However, the accurate prediction of SSCs remains clinically challenging. Leveraging high-content proteomic technologies to comprehensively profile patients' immune response to surgery is a promising approach to identify predictive biological factors of SSCs.METHODS: Forty-one patients undergoing non-cancer bowel resection were prospectively enrolled. Blood samples collected before surgery and on postoperative day one (POD1) were analyzed using a combination of single-cell mass cytometry and plasma proteomics. The primary outcome was the occurrence of an SSC, including surgical site infection, anastomotic leak, or wound dehiscence within 30 days of surgery.RESULTS: A multiomic model integrating the single-cell and plasma proteomic data collected on POD1 accurately differentiated patients with (n = 11) and without (n = 30) an SSC [area under the curve (AUC) = 0.86]. Model features included coregulated proinflammatory (eg, IL-6- and MyD88- signaling responses in myeloid cells) and immunosuppressive (eg, JAK/STAT signaling responses in M-MDSCs and Tregs) events preceding an SSC. Importantly, analysis of the immunological data obtained before surgery also yielded a model accurately predicting SSCs (AUC = 0.82).CONCLUSIONS: The multiomic analysis of patients' immune response after surgery and immune state before surgery revealed systemic immune signatures preceding the development of SSCs. Our results suggest that integrating immunological data in perioperative risk assessment paradigms is a plausible strategy to guide individualized clinical care.

    View details for DOI 10.1097/SLA.0000000000005348

    View details for PubMedID 34954754

  • Measuring the human immune response to surgery: multiomics for the prediction of postoperative outcomes. Current opinion in critical care Verdonk, F., Einhaus, J., Tsai, A. S., Hedou, J., Choisy, B., Gaudilliere, D., Kin, C., Aghaeepour, N., Angst, M. S., Gaudilliere, B. 2021

    Abstract

    Postoperative complications including infections, cognitive impairment, and protracted recovery occur in one-third of the 300 million surgeries performed annually worldwide. Complications cause personal suffering along with a significant economic burden on our healthcare system. However, the accurate prediction of postoperative complications and patient-targeted interventions for their prevention remain as major clinical challenges.Although multifactorial in origin, the dysregulation of immunological mechanisms that occur in response to surgical trauma is a key determinant of postoperative complications. Prior research, primarily focusing on inflammatory plasma markers, has provided important clues regarding their pathogenesis. However, the recent advent of high-content, single-cell transcriptomic, and proteomic technologies has considerably improved our ability to characterize the immune response to surgery, thereby providing new means to understand the immunological basis of postoperative complications and to identify prognostic biological signatures.The comprehensive and single-cell characterization of the human immune response to surgery has significantly advanced our ability to predict the risk of postoperative complications. Multiomic modeling of patients' immune states holds promise for the discovery of preoperative predictive biomarkers, ultimately providing patients and surgeons with actionable information to improve surgical outcomes. Although recent studies have generated a wealth of knowledge, laying the foundation for a single-cell atlas of the human immune response to surgery, larger-scale multiomic studies are required to derive robust, scalable, and sufficiently powerful models to accurately predict the risk of postoperative complications in individual patients.

    View details for DOI 10.1097/MCC.0000000000000883

    View details for PubMedID 34545029

  • VoPo leverages cellular heterogeneity for predictive modeling of single-cell data. Nature communications Stanley, N. n., Stelzer, I. A., Tsai, A. S., Fallahzadeh, R. n., Ganio, E. n., Becker, M. n., Phongpreecha, T. n., Nassar, H. n., Ghaemi, S. n., Maric, I. n., Culos, A. n., Chang, A. L., Xenochristou, M. n., Han, X. n., Espinosa, C. n., Rumer, K. n., Peterson, L. n., Verdonk, F. n., Gaudilliere, D. n., Tsai, E. n., Feyaerts, D. n., Einhaus, J. n., Ando, K. n., Wong, R. J., Obermoser, G. n., Shaw, G. M., Stevenson, D. K., Angst, M. S., Gaudilliere, B. n., Aghaeepour, N. n. 2020; 11 (1): 3738

    Abstract

    High-throughput single-cell analysis technologies produce an abundance of data that is critical for profiling the heterogeneity of cellular systems. We introduce VoPo (https://github.com/stanleyn/VoPo), a machine learning algorithm for predictive modeling and comprehensive visualization of the heterogeneity captured in large single-cell datasets. In three mass cytometry datasets, with the largest measuring hundreds of millions of cells over hundreds of samples, VoPo defines phenotypically and functionally homogeneous cell populations. VoPo further outperforms state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms in classification tasks, and identified immune-correlates of clinically-relevant parameters.

    View details for DOI 10.1038/s41467-020-17569-8

    View details for PubMedID 32719375

  • Author Correction: Preferential inhibition of adaptive immune system dynamics by glucocorticoids in patients after acute surgical trauma. Nature communications Ganio, E. A., Stanley, N. n., Lindberg-Larsen, V. n., Einhaus, J. n., Tsai, A. S., Verdonk, F. n., Culos, A. n., Ghaemi, S. n., Rumer, K. K., Stelzer, I. A., Gaudilliere, D. n., Tsai, E. n., Fallahzadeh, R. n., Choisy, B. n., Kehlet, H. n., Aghaeepour, N. n., Angst, M. S., Gaudilliere, B. n. 2020; 11 (1): 4495

    Abstract

    An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

    View details for DOI 10.1038/s41467-020-18410-y

    View details for PubMedID 32883978

  • Preferential inhibition of adaptive immune system dynamics by glucocorticoids in patients after acute surgical trauma. Nature communications Ganio, E. A., Stanley, N. n., Lindberg-Larsen, V. n., Einhaus, J. n., Tsai, A. S., Verdonk, F. n., Culos, A. n., Gahemi, S. n., Rumer, K. K., Stelzer, I. A., Gaudilliere, D. n., Tsai, E. n., Fallahzadeh, R. n., Choisy, B. n., Kehlet, H. n., Aghaeepour, N. n., Angst, M. S., Gaudilliere, B. n. 2020; 11 (1): 3737

    Abstract

    Glucocorticoids (GC) are a controversial yet commonly used intervention in the clinical management of acute inflammatory conditions, including sepsis or traumatic injury. In the context of major trauma such as surgery, concerns have been raised regarding adverse effects from GC, thereby necessitating a better understanding of how GCs modulate the immune response. Here we report the results of a randomized controlled trial (NCT02542592) in which we employ a high-dimensional mass cytometry approach to characterize innate and adaptive cell signaling dynamics after a major surgery (primary outcome) in patients treated with placebo or methylprednisolone (MP). A robust, unsupervised bootstrap clustering of immune cell subsets coupled with random forest analysis shows profound (AUC = 0.92, p-value = 3.16E-8) MP-induced alterations of immune cell signaling trajectories, particularly in the adaptive compartments. By contrast, key innate signaling responses previously associated with pain and functional recovery after surgery, including STAT3 and CREB phosphorylation, are not affected by MP. These results imply cell-specific and pathway-specific effects of GCs, and also prompt future studies to examine GCs' effects on clinical outcomes likely dependent on functional adaptive immune responses.

    View details for DOI 10.1038/s41467-020-17565-y

    View details for PubMedID 32719355

  • Differential Dynamics of the Maternal Immune System in Healthy Pregnancy and Preeclampsia FRONTIERS IN IMMUNOLOGY Han, X., Ghaemi, M. S., Ando, K., Peterson, L. S., Ganio, E. A., Tsai, A. S., Gaudilliere, D. K., Stelzer, I. A., Einhaus, J., Bertrand, B., Stanley, N., Culos, A., Tanada, A., Hedou, J., Tsai, E. S., Fallahzadeh, R., Wong, R. J., Judy, A. E., Winn, V. D., Druzins, M. L., Blumenfeld, Y. J., Hlatky, M. A., Quaintance, C. C., Gibbs, R. S., Carvalho, B., Shaw, G. M., Stevenson, D. K., Angst, M. S., Aghaeepour, N., Gaudilliere, B. 2019; 10
  • Differential Dynamics of the Maternal Immune System in Healthy Pregnancy and Preeclampsia. Frontiers in immunology Han, X., Ghaemi, M. S., Ando, K., Peterson, L. S., Ganio, E. A., Tsai, A. S., Gaudilliere, D. K., Stelzer, I. A., Einhaus, J., Bertrand, B., Stanley, N., Culos, A., Tanada, A., Hedou, J., Tsai, E. S., Fallahzadeh, R., Wong, R. J., Judy, A. E., Winn, V. D., Druzin, M. L., Blumenfeld, Y. J., Hlatky, M. A., Quaintance, C. C., Gibbs, R. S., Carvalho, B., Shaw, G. M., Stevenson, D. K., Angst, M. S., Aghaeepour, N., Gaudilliere, B. 2019; 10: 1305

    Abstract

    Preeclampsia is one of the most severe pregnancy complications and a leading cause of maternal death. However, early diagnosis of preeclampsia remains a clinical challenge. Alterations in the normal immune adaptations necessary for the maintenance of a healthy pregnancy are central features of preeclampsia. However, prior analyses primarily focused on the static assessment of select immune cell subsets have provided limited information for the prediction of preeclampsia. Here, we used a high-dimensional mass cytometry immunoassay to characterize the dynamic changes of over 370 immune cell features (including cell distribution and functional responses) in maternal blood during healthy and preeclamptic pregnancies. We found a set of eight cell-specific immune features that accurately identified patients well before the clinical diagnosis of preeclampsia (median area under the curve (AUC) 0.91, interquartile range [0.82-0.92]). Several features recapitulated previously known immune dysfunctions in preeclampsia, such as elevated pro-inflammatory innate immune responses early in pregnancy and impaired regulatory T (Treg) cell signaling. The analysis revealed additional novel immune responses that were strongly associated with, and preceded the onset of preeclampsia, notably abnormal STAT5ab signaling dynamics in CD4+T cell subsets (AUC 0.92, p = 8.0E-5). These results provide a global readout of the dynamics of the maternal immune system early in pregnancy and lay the groundwork for identifying clinically-relevant immune dysfunctions for the prediction and prevention of preeclampsia.

    View details for DOI 10.3389/fimmu.2019.01305

    View details for PubMedID 31263463

    View details for PubMedCentralID PMC6584811

  • A YEAR-LONG IMMUNE PROFILE OF THE SYSTEMIC RESPONSE IN ACUTE STROKE SURVIVORS Tsai, A., Berry, K., Beneyto, M. M., Gaudilliere, D., Ganio, E. A., Culos, A., Ghaemi, M. S., Choisy, B., Djebali, K., Einhaus, J. F., Bertrand, B., Tanada, A., Stanley, N., Fallahzadeh, R., Baca, Q., Quach, L. N., Osborn, E., Drag, L., Lansberg, M., Angst, M., Gaudilliere, B., Buckwalter, M. S., Aghaeepour, N. LIPPINCOTT WILLIAMS & WILKINS. 2019: 155
  • DEEP IMMUNE PROFILE OF PREOPERATIVE GLUCOCORTICOID ADMINISTRATION IN PATIENTS UNDERGOING SURGERY Rumer, K., Ganio, E. A., Stanley, N., Einhaus, J., Tsai, A. S., Culos, A., Fallazadeh, R., Lindberg-Larsen, V., Kehlet, H., Angst, M., Aghaeepour, N., Gaudilliere, B. LIPPINCOTT WILLIAMS & WILKINS. 2019: 140
  • DEEP IMMUNE PROFILE OF PREOPERATIVE GLUCOCORTICOID ADMINISTRATION IN PATIENTS UNDERGOING SURGERY Gaudilliere, B., Ganio, E. A., Stanley, N., Einhaus, J., Tsai, A. S., Culos, A., Rumer, K., Fallahzadeh, R., Lindberg-Larsen, V., Kehlet, H., Angst, M. S., Aghaeepour, N. LIPPINCOTT WILLIAMS & WILKINS. 2019: 733
  • A year-long immune profile of the systemic response in acute stroke survivors. Brain : a journal of neurology Tsai, A. S., Berry, K., Beneyto, M. M., Gaudilliere, D., Ganio, E. A., Culos, A., Ghaemi, M. S., Choisy, B., Djebali, K., Einhaus, J. F., Bertrand, B., Tanada, A., Stanley, N., Fallahzadeh, R., Baca, Q., Quach, L. N., Osborn, E., Drag, L., Lansberg, M. G., Angst, M. S., Gaudilliere, B., Buckwalter, M. S., Aghaeepour, N. 2019

    Abstract

    Stroke is a leading cause of cognitive impairment and dementia, but the mechanisms that underlie post-stroke cognitive decline are not well understood. Stroke produces profound local and systemic immune responses that engage all major innate and adaptive immune compartments. However, whether the systemic immune response to stroke contributes to long-term disability remains ill-defined. We used a single-cell mass cytometry approach to comprehensively and functionally characterize the systemic immune response to stroke in longitudinal blood samples from 24 patients over the course of 1 year and correlated the immune response with changes in cognitive functioning between 90 and 365 days post-stroke. Using elastic net regularized regression modelling, we identified key elements of a robust and prolonged systemic immune response to ischaemic stroke that occurs in three phases: an acute phase (Day 2) characterized by increased signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) signalling responses in innate immune cell types, an intermediate phase (Day 5) characterized by increased cAMP response element-binding protein (CREB) signalling responses in adaptive immune cell types, and a late phase (Day 90) by persistent elevation of neutrophils, and immunoglobulin M+ (IgM+) B cells. By Day 365 there was no detectable difference between these samples and those from an age- and gender-matched patient cohort without stroke. When regressed against the change in the Montreal Cognitive Assessment scores between Days 90 and 365 after stroke, the acute inflammatory phase Elastic Net model correlated with post-stroke cognitive trajectories (r = -0.692, Bonferroni-corrected P = 0.039). The results demonstrate the utility of a deep immune profiling approach with mass cytometry for the identification of clinically relevant immune correlates of long-term cognitive trajectories.

    View details for DOI 10.1093/brain/awz022

    View details for PubMedID 30860258

  • Differential Dynamics of the Maternal Immune System in Healthy Pregnancy and Preeclampsia. Han, X., Ghaemi, M. S., Ando, K., Peterson, L., Ganio, E. A., Tsai, A. S., Gaudilliere, D., Einhaus, J., Tsai, E. S., Stanley, N. M., Culos, A., Taneda, A. H., Fallahzadeh, R., Wong, R. J., Winn, V. D., Stevenson, D. K., Angst, M. S., Aghaeepour, N., Gaudilliere, B. SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC. 2019: 271A