@phdthesis{Rizzo2023,
  author    = {Rizzo, Giuseppe},
  title     = {Determinants of macrophage and neutrophil heterogeneity in cardiac repair after myocardial infarction},
  doi       = {10.25972/OPUS-31068},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-310680},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg},
  year      = {2023},
  abstract  = {Current therapeutic strategies efficiently improve survival in patients after myocardial infarction (MI). Nevertheless, long-term consequences such as heart failure development, are still one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Inflammation is critically involved in the cardiac healing process after MI and has a dual role, contributing to both tissue healing and tissue damage. In the last decade, a lot of attention was given to targeting inflammation as a potential therapeutic approach in MI, but the poor understanding of inflammatory cell heterogeneity and function is a limit to the development of immune modulatory strategies. The recent development of tools to profile immune cells with high resolution has provided a unique opportunity to better understand immune cell heterogeneity and dynamics in the ischemic heart. In this thesis, we employed single-cell RNA-sequencing combined with detection of epitopes by sequencing (CITE-seq) to refine our understanding of neutrophils and monocytes/macrophages heterogeneity and dynamic after experimental myocardial infarction. Neutrophils rapidly invade the infarcted heart shortly after ischemic damage and have previously been proposed to display time-dependent functional heterogeneity. At the single-cell level, we observed dynamic transcriptional heterogeneity in neutrophil populations during the acute post-MI phase and defined previously unknown cardiac neutrophil states. In particular, we identified a locally acquired SiglecFhi neutrophil state that displayed higher ROS production and phagocytic ability compared to newly recruited neutrophils, suggesting the acquisition of specific function in the infarcted heart. These findings highlight the importance of the tissue microenvironment in shaping neutrophil response. From the macrophage perspective, we characterized MI-associated monocyte-derived macrophage subsets, two with a pro-inflammatory gene signature (MHCIIhiIl1βhi) and three Trem2hi macrophage populations with a lipid associated macrophage (LAM) signature, also expressing pro-fibrotic and tissue repair genes. Combined analysis of blood monocytes and cardiac monocyte/macrophages indicated that the Trem2hi LAM signature is acquired in the infarcted heart. We furthermore characterized the role of TREM2, a surface protein expressed mainly in macrophages and involved in macrophage survival and function, in the post-MI macrophage response and cardiac repair. Using TREM2 deficient mice, we demonstrate that acquisition of the LAM signature in cardiac macrophages after MI is partially dependent on TREM2. While their cardiac function was not affected, TREM2 deficient mice showed reduced collagen deposition in the heart after MI. Thus, our data in Trem2-deficient mice highlight the role of TREM2 in promoting a macrophage pro-fibrotic phenotype, in line with the pro-fibrotic/tissue repair gene signature of the Trem2hi LAM-signature genes. Overall, our data provide a high-resolution characterization of neutrophils and macrophage heterogeneity and dynamics in the ischemic heart and can be used as a valuable resource to investigate how these cells modulate the healing processes after MI. Furthermore, our work identified TREM2 as a regulator of macrophage phenotype in the infarcted heart},
  subject      = {Makrophage},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Gaal2022,
  author    = {Gaal, Chiara Claudia},
  title     = {Cardiac Antigens and T cell Specificity after Experimental Myocardial Infarction in Mice},
  doi       = {10.25972/OPUS-26004},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-260047},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg},
  year      = {2022},
  abstract  = {Cardiovascular diseases (CVD), subsuming atherosclerosis of the coronary arteries and subsequent myocardial infarction, are the leading cause of death in the European Union (over 4 million deaths annually), with devastating individual and economic consequences. Recent studies revealed that T cells play a crucial role in post-MI inflammation, healing and remodelling processes. Nevertheless, the specificity profile of adaptive immune responses in the infarcted myocardium has not yet been differentiated. The experiments portrayed in this thesis sought to assess whether post-MI CD4+ T cell responses in mice are triggered by heart specific antigens, and eventually identify relevant epitopes. We were able to create a murine antigen atlas including a list of 206 epitopes for I-Ab and 193 epitopes for I-Ad presented on MHC-II in the context of MI. We sought to consecutively test this panel by in vitro T cell proliferation and antigen recall assays ex vivo. The elispot assay was used as a readout for antigen-specific stimulation by measurement of IL-2 and IFN-γ production, currently the most sensitive approach available to detect even small counts of antigen producing cells. Splenocytes as well as lymphocytes from mediastinal lymph nodes were purified from animals 7 days or 56 days after EMI conducted by ligation of the left anterior descending artery. We were able to provide evidence that post-MI T cell responses in Balb/c mice are triggered by heart-specific antigens and that MYHCA, especially MYHCA614-628, is relevant for that response. Moreover, a significant specific T cell response after MI in C57BL/6J mice was observed for α actin, cardiac muscle 1 [ACTC1], myosin-binding protein C3 [MYBPC3] and myosin heavy chain α [MYHCA] derived heart specific antigens. Generally, the epitopes of interest for Balb/c as well as C57BL/6J could be further investigated and may eventually be modulated in the future.},
  subject      = {Regulatorische T-Lymphozyt},
  language  = {en}
}
@unpublished{HeidenreichGassenmaierAnkenbrandetal.2021,
  author    = {Heidenreich, Julius F. and Gassenmaier, Tobias and Ankenbrand, Markus J. and Bley, Thorsten A. and Wech, Tobias},
  title     = {Self-configuring nnU-net pipeline enables fully automatic infarct segmentation in late enhancement MRI after myocardial infarction},
  edition   = {accepted version},
  doi       = {10.1016/j.ejrad.2021.109817},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-323418},
  year      = {2021},
  abstract  = {Purpose To fully automatically derive quantitative parameters from late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) cardiac MR (CMR) in patients with myocardial infarction and to investigate if phase sensitive or magnitude reconstructions or a combination of both results in best segmentation accuracy. Methods In this retrospective single center study, a convolutional neural network with a U-Net architecture with a self-configuring framework ("nnU-net") was trained for segmentation of left ventricular myocardium and infarct zone in LGE-CMR. A database of 170 examinations from 78 patients with history of myocardial infarction was assembled. Separate fitting of the model was performed, using phase sensitive inversion recovery, the magnitude reconstruction or both contrasts as input channels. Manual labelling served as ground truth. In a subset of 10 patients, the performance of the trained models was evaluated and quantitatively compared by determination of the S{\o}rensen-Dice similarity coefficient (DSC) and volumes of the infarct zone compared with the manual ground truth using Pearson's r correlation and Bland-Altman analysis. Results The model achieved high similarity coefficients for myocardium and scar tissue. No significant difference was observed between using PSIR, magnitude reconstruction or both contrasts as input (PSIR and MAG; mean DSC: 0.83 ± 0.03 for myocardium and 0.72 ± 0.08 for scars). A strong correlation for volumes of infarct zone was observed between manual and model-based approach (r = 0.96), with a significant underestimation of the volumes obtained from the neural network. Conclusion The self-configuring nnU-net achieves predictions with strong agreement compared to manual segmentation, proving the potential as a promising tool to provide fully automatic quantitative evaluation of LGE-CMR.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{GassenmaierGorskiAleksicetal.2013,
  author    = {Gassenmaier, Tobias and Gorski, Armin and Aleksic, Ivan and Deubner, Nikolas and Weidemann, Frank and Beer, Meinrad},
  title     = {Impact of cardiac magnet resonance imaging on management of ventricular septal rupture after acute myocardial infarction},
  series = {World Journal of Cardiology},
  journal   = {World Journal of Cardiology},
  doi       = {10.4330/wjc.v5.i5.151},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-96562},
  year      = {2013},
  abstract  = {A 74-year-old man was admitted to the cardiac catheterization laboratory with acute myocardial infarction. After successful angioplasty and stent implantation into the right coronary artery, he developed cardiogenic shock the following day. Echocardiography showed ventricular septal rupture. Cardiac magnet resonance imaging (MRI) was performed on the critically ill patient and provided detailed information on size and localization of the ruptured septum by the use of fast MRI sequences. Moreover, the MRI revealed that the ventricular septal rupture was within the myocardial infarction area, which was substantially larger than the rupture. As the patient's condition worsened, he was intubated and had intra-aortic balloon pump implanted, and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation was initiated. During the following days, the patient's situation improved, and surgical correction of the ventricular septal defect could successfully be performed. To the best of our knowledge, this case report is the first description of postinfarction ventricular septal rupture by the use of cardiac MRI in an intensive care patient with cardiogenic shock and subsequent successful surgical repair.},
  language  = {en}
}