Effect of Advanced Age on the Innate Immune Response to Cutaneous Wound Infection
type: CreativeWork
description: An estimated 25 billion in US health care expenditure is spent on care of chronic, non-healing wounds. The failure to effectively heal wounds is often compounded by co-morbidities, such as diabetes or obesity. Another major patient population afflicted with chronic wounds are the elderly. Advanced age is associated with a decline in immunologic function that contributes to a poor response to vaccination, infection and tissue injury resulting in prolonged hospital stays and age-related morbidity and mortality. Specifically, clinical observations and laboratory studies have suggested an age-related decline in cutaneous wound healing, marked by protracted wound closure, wound dehiscence and chronic wound states. Previous studies have suggested that age-related alterations in the early inflammatory phase of cutaneous wound injury may contribute to the lengthened and aberrant course of wound healing in the elderly. This impaired response to cutaneous injury offers a persistent portal of entry for foreign pathogens, such as Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus), a common dermatopathogen that accounts for up to 50% of surgical site infections in the elderly. Underlying this elevated susceptibility to infection are deficits in host recognition, phagocytosis, migration and activation of a pathogen-specific adaptive immune response. Specific innate immune deficits have been tied to an elevated risk of S. aureus wound infection, including decreased neutrophil counts and function, reduced expression of cutaneous antimicrobial peptides and aberrant toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2) expression and/or signaling. However, the effect of age on these specific alterations in the innate response has not been well described in a model of cutaneous wound infection. Thus, we hypothesized that advanced age contributes to a functionally inept innate immune response that impairs resolution of S. aureus cutaneous wound infection. To elucidate the effects of advanced age on cutaneous wound infection, th…
abstract: An estimated 25 billion in US health care expenditure is spent on care of chronic, non-healing wounds. The failure to effectively heal wounds is often compounded by co-morbidities, such as diabetes or obesity. Another major patient population afflicted with chronic wounds are the elderly. Advanced age is associated with a decline in immunologic function that contributes to a poor response to vaccination, infection and tissue injury resulting in prolonged hospital stays and age-related morbidity and mortality. Specifically, clinical observations and laboratory studies have suggested an age-related decline in cutaneous wound healing, marked by protracted wound closure, wound dehiscence and chronic wound states. Previous studies have suggested that age-related alterations in the early inflammatory phase of cutaneous wound injury may contribute to the lengthened and aberrant course of wound healing in the elderly. This impaired response to cutaneous injury offers a persistent portal of entry for foreign pathogens, such as Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus), a common dermatopathogen that accounts for up to 50% of surgical site infections in the elderly. Underlying this elevated susceptibility to infection are deficits in host recognition, phagocytosis, migration and activation of a pathogen-specific adaptive immune response. Specific innate immune deficits have been tied to an elevated risk of S. aureus wound infection, including decreased neutrophil counts and function, reduced expression of cutaneous antimicrobial peptides and aberrant toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2) expression and/or signaling. However, the effect of age on these specific alterations in the innate response has not been well described in a model of cutaneous wound infection. Thus, we hypothesized that advanced age contributes to a functionally inept innate immune response that impairs resolution of S. aureus cutaneous wound infection. To elucidate the effects of advanced age on cutaneous wound infection, th…
author: Brubaker, Aleah Lin
keywords: Aging, Anti-Microbial Peptides, Chemotaxis, Innate Immunology, Macrophage, Neutrophils, Cell and Developmental Biology
date published: 2013-01-01T08:00:00Z
date modified: 2026-07-24T02:55:37Z
provider: Loyola University Chicago
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Loyola University Chicago