Publications by authors named "Laura Heeb"

Multimodal therapy for peritoneal metastasis (PM) including cytoreductive surgery (CRS) and hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC) provides long-term survival in highly selected colorectal cancer patients. Mechanisms behind HIPEC are unknown and may include induction of adaptive immunity. We therefore analyzed human PM samples and explored the impact of HIPEC in experimental models.

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Background: Lyme borreliosis is one of the most prevalent tick-borne diseases in Europe. Studies on seroprevalence of Borrelia burgdorferi IgG antibodies in children are rare. The aim of this study was to determine the seroprevalence of B.

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The immune-inhibitory molecule programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) has been shown to play a role in pathologies such as autoimmunity, infections, and cancer. The expression of PD-L1 not only on cancer cells but also on non-transformed host cells is known to be associated with cancer progression. Generation of PD-L1 deficiency in the murine system enables us to specifically study the role of PD-L1 in physiological processes and diseases.

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Imaging of iron-based nanoparticles (NPs) remains challenging because of the presence of endogenous iron in tissues that is difficult to distinguish from exogenous iron originating from the NPs. Here, an analytical cascade for characterizing the biodistribution of biomedically relevant iron-based NPs from the organ scale to the cellular and subcellular scales is introduced. The biodistribution on an organ level is assessed by elemental analysis and quantification of magnetic iron by electron paramagnetic resonance, which allowed differentiation of exogenous and endogenous iron.

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Microscopic magnetic field inhomogeneities caused by iron deposition or tissue-air interfaces may result in rapid decay of transverse magnetization in MRI. The aim of this study is to detect and quantify the distribution of iron-based nanoparticles in mouse models by applying ultrashort-echo-time (UTE) sequences in tissues exhibiting extremely fast transverse relaxation. In 24 C57BL/6 mice (two controls), suspensions containing either non-oxidic Fe or AuFeO nanoparticles were injected into the tail vein at two doses (200 μg and 600 μg per mouse).

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Platelet-derived peripheral serotonin has pleiotropic effects on coagulation, metabolism, tissue regeneration, and cancer growth; however, the effect of serotonin on the tumor microenvironment remains understudied. Peripheral serotonin–deficient () mice displayed reduced growth of subcutaneous and orthotopically injected syngeneic murine pancreatic and colorectal cancers with enhanced accumulation of functional CD8 T cells compared to control C57BL/6 mice, resulting in extended overall survival. Subcutaneous and orthotopic syngeneic tumors from mice expressed less programmed cell death 1 ligand 1 (PD-L1), suggesting serotonin-mediated regulation.

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The liver is a major metastatic target organ, and little is known about the role of immunity in controlling hepatic metastases. Here, we discovered that the concerted and nonredundant action of two innate lymphocyte subpopulations, conventional natural killer cells (cNKs) and tissue-resident type I innate lymphoid cells (trILC1s), is essential for antimetastatic defense. Using different preclinical models for liver metastasis, we found that trILC1 controls metastatic seeding, whereas cNKs restrain outgrowth.

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Initial enteropathogen growth in the microbiota-colonized gut is poorly understood. Salmonella Typhimurium is metabolically adaptable and can harvest energy by anaerobic respiration using microbiota-derived hydrogen (H) as an electron donor and fumarate as an electron acceptor. As fumarate is scarce in the gut, the source of this electron acceptor is unclear.

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Bacteriophages provide excellent tools for diagnostics, remediation, and targeted microbiome manipulation, yet isolating viruses with suitable host specificity remains challenging. Using Listeria phage PSA, we present a synthetic biology blueprint for host-range engineering through targeted modification of serovar-specific receptor binding proteins (RBPs). We identify Gp15 as the PSA RBP and construct a synthetic phage library featuring sequence-randomized RBPs, from which host range mutants are isolated and subsequently integrated into a synthetic, polyvalent phage with extended host range.

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