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Longitudinal study of wound healing status and bacterial colonisation of Staphylococcus aureus and Corynebacterium diphtheriae in epidermolysis bullosa patients

2022 , FUENTES BUSTOS, MARIA IGNACIA , YUBERO GONCALVEZ, MARIA JOAO , Pilar Morandé , Carmen Varela , Karen Oróstica , Francisco Acevedo , REBOLLEDO JARAMILLO, BORIS EDUARDO , Esteban Arancibia , PORTE TORRE, LORENA ISABEL , PALISSON ETCHARREN, FRANCIS

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Epidemiology of epidermolysis bullosa in Chile

2024 , PALISSON ETCHARREN, FRANCIS , YUBERO GONCALVEZ, MARIA JOAO , Cristóbal Lecaros , Susanne Krämer , Constanza Fuentes , Pilar Morandé , Belkis Noya , Glenda Cofré , Jimena Castillo , Francisco Acevedo , Natalia Burattini , Antonella Muñoz , Alfred Klausseger , FUENTES BUSTOS, MARIA IGNACIA

In this manuscript we are presenting the first National Epidermolysis Bullosa Epidemiology study done in South America. Our manuscript describes not only population-level estimates, such as incidence, prevalence and mortality of EB, but also genetic data that are unique to this underrepresented population. We report new data about this rare disease showing comparable life expectancy to wealthier nations, demonstrating the value of specialized EB care centres.

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Maintenance of chronicity signatures in fibroblasts isolated from recessive dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa chronic wound dressings under culture conditions

2023 , DE GREGORIO CONCHA, CRISTIAN ALEJANDRO , Evelyng Catalán , Gabriel Garrido , Pilar Morandé , CASTILLO BENNETT, JIMENA VICTORIA , Catalina Muñoz , Glenda Cofré , HUANG, YA LIN , Bárbara Cuadra , Paola Murgas , Margarita Calvo , Fernando Altermatt , Andrew P. South , YUBERO GONCALVEZ, MARIA JOAO , PALISSON ETCHARREN, FRANCIS , EZQUER, EDUARDO MARCELO , FUENTES BUSTOS, MARIA IGNACIA

Abstract Background Recessive Dystrophic Epidermolysis Bullosa (RDEB) is a rare inherited skin disease caused by variants in the COL7A1 gene, coding for type VII collagen (C7), an important component of anchoring fibrils in the basement membrane of the epidermis. RDEB patients suffer from skin fragility starting with blister formation and evolving into chronic wounds, inflammation and skin fibrosis, with a high risk of developing aggressive skin carcinomas. Restricted therapeutic options are limited by the lack of in vitro models of defective wound healing in RDEB patients. Results In order to explore a more efficient, non-invasive in vitro model for RDEB studies, we obtained patient fibroblasts derived from discarded dressings) and examined their phenotypic features compared with fibroblasts derived from non-injured skin of RDEB and healthy-donor skin biopsies. Our results demonstrate that fibroblasts derived from RDEB chronic wounds (RDEB-CW) displayed characteristics of senescent cells, increased myofibroblast differentiation, and augmented levels of TGF-β1 signaling components compared to fibroblasts derived from RDEB acute wounds and unaffected RDEB skin as well as skin from healthy-donors. Furthermore, RDEB-CW fibroblasts exhibited an increased pattern of inflammatory cytokine secretion (IL-1β and IL-6) when compared with RDEB and control fibroblasts. Interestingly, these aberrant patterns were found specifically in RDEB-CW fibroblasts independent of the culturing method, since fibroblasts obtained from dressing of acute wounds displayed a phenotype more similar to fibroblasts obtained from RDEB normal skin biopsies. Conclusions Our results show that in vitro cultured RDEB-CW fibroblasts maintain distinctive cellular and molecular characteristics resembling the inflammatory and fibrotic microenvironment observed in RDEB patients’ chronic wounds. This work describes a novel, non-invasive and painless strategy to obtain human fibroblasts chronically subjected to an inflammatory and fibrotic environment, supporting their use as an accessible model for in vitro studies of RDEB wound healing pathogenesis. As such, this approach is well suited to testing new therapeutic strategies under controlled laboratory conditions.

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Cells from discarded dressings differentiate chronic from acute wounds in patients with Epidermolysis Bullosa

2020 , FUENTES BUSTOS, MARIA IGNACIA , Christina Guttmann-Gruber , Birgit Tockner , Anja Diem , Alfred Klausegger , Glenda Cofré-Araneda , Olga Figuera , Yessia Hidalgo , Pilar Morandé , PALISSON ETCHARREN, FRANCIS , Boris Rebolledo-Jaramillo , YUBERO GONCALVEZ, MARIA JOAO , Raymond J. Cho , Heather I. Rishel , M. Peter Marinkovich , Joyce M. C. Teng , Timothy G. Webster , Marco Prisco , Luis H. Eraso , Josefina Piñon Hofbauer , Andrew P. South

AbstractImpaired wound healing complicates a wide range of diseases and represents a major cost to healthcare systems. Here we describe the use of discarded wound dressings as a novel, cost effective, accessible, and non-invasive method of isolating viable human cells present at the site of skin wounds. By analyzing 133 discarded wound dressings from 51 patients with the inherited skin-blistering disease epidermolysis bullosa (EB), we show that large numbers of cells, often in excess of 100 million per day, continually infiltrate wound dressings. We show, that the method is able to differentiate chronic from acute wounds, identifying significant increases in granulocytes in chronic wounds, and we show that patients with the junctional form of EB have significantly more cells infiltrating their wounds compared with patients with recessive dystrophic EB. Finally, we identify subsets of granulocytes and T lymphocytes present in all wounds paving the way for single cell profiling of innate and adaptive immune cells with relevance to wound pathologies. In summary, our study delineates findings in EB that have potential relevance for all chronic wounds, and presents a method of cellular isolation that has wide reaching clinical application.