Publications by authors named "B Fehrenbacher"

Article Synopsis
  • Voriconazole (VOR), an anti-fungal drug, can cause phototoxicity and skin cancer by impairing the DNA repair process known as nucleotide excision repair (NER).
  • VOR affects NER not by changing the expression of related genes but by binding to heterochromatin, disrupting the acetylation of histone H3, which is necessary for effective DNA repair.
  • Using histone deacetylase inhibitors to restore H3 acetylation can reverse the NER inhibition caused by VOR, suggesting a potential therapeutic strategy to prevent its harmful effects.
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Immune checkpoint inhibitors have revolutionized cancer therapy, yet the efficacy of these treatments is often limited by the heterogeneous and hypoxic tumor microenvironment (TME) of solid tumors. In the TME, programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression on cancer cells is mainly regulated by Interferon-gamma (IFN-γ), which induces T cell exhaustion and enables tumor immune evasion. In this study, we demonstrate that acidosis, a common characteristic of solid tumors, significantly increases IFN-γ-induced PD-L1 expression on aggressive cancer cells, thus promoting immune escape.

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In patients infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, vasculopathic changes of the skin are associated with a severe prognosis. However, the pathogenesis of this vasculopathy is not conclusively clarified. In this study, 25 prospectively collected skin samples from patients with COVID-19-related skin lesions were examined for vasculopathic changes and, in case of vasculitis, were further analyzed with electron microscopy and immunohistochemistry.

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Rosacea lessens patients' quality of life not only by visible symptoms like erythema, papules, and pustules but also by invisible symptoms like stinging, burning, and dryness. Ivermectin 1% cream has recently been introduced as an efficient therapy for papules and pustules in rosacea patients. To investigate the potential of ivermectin 1% cream to improve rosacea-associated erythema and invisible symptoms by combining established questionnaires with the novel photography and analysis tool Scarletred®Vision.

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