Publications by authors named "Wolfram Ruf"

Article Synopsis
  • Fibrinolysis plays a crucial role in the release of hematopoietic stem cells from bone marrow, affecting the development of B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL).
  • Activation of plasmin, driven by annexin A2, alters the extracellular matrix (ECM), which impacts cancer cell growth by trapping the growth factor IGF1 and hindering signaling pathways.
  • Inhibiting plasmin activation with ε-aminocaproic acid (EACA) shows promise in reducing tumor size and extending survival in B-ALL models, suggesting that targeting fibrinolysis could be a helpful addition to cancer treatment.
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  • Human saliva contains extracellular vesicles (EVs) that can activate blood coagulation through the presence of extrinsic tenase complexes, which include tissue factor and activated factor VII.
  • Individuals with severe hemophilia A, who lack FVIII, have salivary EVs that can compensate for their condition by generating FXa, leading to infrequent oropharyngeal bleeding.
  • In contrast, people with severe FVII deficiency lack these functional extrinsic tenase complexes in their saliva, resulting in more frequent oropharyngeal bleedings; however, adding recombinant FVIIa can restore coagulation potential in their saliva.
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  • - The study evaluated the Resilience Scale-5 (RS-5) for measuring psychological resilience, which is important for mental health, using data from nearly 7,500 participants aged 25 to 86 over five years.
  • - Results showed that the RS-5 has strong reliability and validity, with an average resilience score of 28.94; older participants (≥75) scored the highest, and resilience was linked to factors like gender, age, education, and income.
  • - The RS-5 is presented as an effective tool for measuring resilience in different demographics, providing updated norms specific to the German population to better understand how various factors influence resilience levels.
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Background: Epidemiology links noise to increased risk of metabolic diseases like diabetes and obesity. Translational studies in humans and experimental animals showed that noise causes reactive oxygen species (ROS)-mediated cardiovascular damage. The interaction between noise and diabetes, specifically potential additive adverse effects, remains to be determined.

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  • The study investigates how coagulation factor X (FX) impacts tumor growth in castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) by examining the prostate tumor microenvironment in mouse models through single-cell RNA sequencing.
  • It finds that immunosuppressive neutrophils (PMN-MDSCs) produce FX, which activates pathways that enhance tumor cell growth independent of androgens, indicating a role for FX in cancer progression.
  • Targeting FXa could impede the oncogenic function of PMN-MDSCs and potentially improve treatment outcomes when combined with existing therapies, with high levels of FX and related markers correlating to worse survival in CRPC patients.
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Background: Excess fibrotic remodeling causes cardiac dysfunction in ischemic heart disease, driven by MAP (mitogen-activated protein) kinase-dependent TGF-ß1 (transforming growth factor-ß1) activation by coagulation signaling of myeloid cells. How coagulation-inflammatory circuits can be specifically targeted to achieve beneficial macrophage reprogramming after myocardial infarction (MI) is not completely understood.

Methods: Mice with permanent ligation of the left anterior descending artery were used to model nonreperfused MI and analyzed by single-cell RNA sequencing, protein expression changes, confocal microscopy, and longitudinal monitoring of recovery.

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  • Imbalances in proteolytic activity are linked to inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), where intestinal proteases can disrupt homeostasis and promote inflammation through protease-activated receptors (PARs).
  • This study focuses on the role of microbial proteases in activating PAR2 and found that proteolytic cleavage of PAR2 increases intestinal permeability and inflammation during colitis.
  • Mice with a mutated, protease-resistant version of PAR2 showed less severe colitis, suggesting that targeting PAR2 cleavage by bacterial proteases could be a potential therapeutic approach for IBD.
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Inflammation promotes solid tumor progression, but how regulatory mechanisms of inflammation may affect leukemia is less well studied. Using annexin A5 (ANXA5), a calcium-binding protein known for apoptosis, which we discovered to be differentially expressed in the bone marrow microenvironment (BMM) of mice with acute myeloid (AML) vs chronic myeloid leukemia, as a model system, we unravel here a circuit in which AML-derived tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α) dose-dependently reduces ANXA5 in the BMM. This creates an inflammatory BMM via elevated levels of prostaglandin E2 (PGE2).

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Background: Endothelial activation promotes the release of procoagulant extracellular vesicles and inflammatory mediators from specialized storage granules. Endothelial membrane exocytosis is controlled by phosphorylation. We hypothesized that the absence of PTP1B (protein tyrosine phosphatase 1B) in endothelial cells promotes venous thromboinflammation by triggering endothelial membrane fusion and exocytosis.

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Background: Accumulating evidence implicates the activation of G-protein-coupled PARs (protease-activated receptors) by coagulation proteases in the regulation of innate immune responses.

Methods: Using mouse models with genetic alterations of the PAR2 signaling platform, we have explored contributions of PAR2 signaling to infection with coxsackievirus B3, a single-stranded RNA virus provoking multiorgan tissue damage, including the heart.

Results: We show that PAR2 activation sustains correlates of severe morbidity-hemodynamic compromise, aggravated hypothermia, and hypoglycemia-despite intact control of the virus.

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The antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) is an autoimmune disease characterized by the presence of pathogenic antiphospholipid antibodies (aPL). Since approximately 30 years ago, lipid-binding aPL, which do not require a protein cofactor, have been regarded as irrelevant for APS pathogenesis even though anticardiolipin are a diagnostic criterion of APS. In this review, we will summarize the available evidence from studies, animal models, and epidemiologic studies, which suggest that this concept is no longer tenable.

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Links between the complement and coagulation systems could lead to Long Covid therapies.

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Antiphospholipid antibodies (aPL) in primary or secondary antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) are a major cause for acquired thrombophilia, but specific interventions preventing autoimmune aPL development are an unmet clinical need. Although autoimmune aPL cross react with various coagulation regulatory proteins, lipid-reactive aPL, including those derived from patients with COVID-19, recognize the endolysosomal phospholipid lysobisphosphatidic acid presented by the cell surface-expressed endothelial protein C receptor. This specific recognition leads to complement-mediated activation of tissue factor (TF)-dependent proinflammatory signaling and thrombosis.

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Article Synopsis
  • Protease activated receptors (PARs) link blood clotting processes with immune responses, and PAR2 signaling, particularly involving tissue factor (TF) and factor VIIa (FVIIa), plays a crucial role in cancer cell movement and inflammation.
  • Myeloid cells expressing FVII are important for recruiting inflammatory cells to the lungs after viral challenges, highlighting that a specific PAR2 cleavage pathway is essential for lung inflammation.
  • The study reveals that through biased signaling involving β-arrestin, PAR2 mediates macrophage migration and immune recruitment to lung tissues, suggesting that targeting this signaling pathway could offer new treatment options for inflammation-related conditions.
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Externalized histones erupt from the nucleus as extracellular traps, are associated with several acute and chronic lung disorders, but their implications in the molecular pathogenesis of interstitial lung disease are incompletely defined. To investigate the role and molecular mechanisms of externalized histones within the immunologic networks of pulmonary fibrosis, we studied externalized histones in human and animal bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) samples of lung fibrosis. Neutralizing anti-histone antibodies were administered in bleomycin-induced fibrosis of C57BL/6 J mice, and subsequent studies used conditional/constitutive knockout mouse strains for TGFβ and IL-27 signaling along with isolated platelets and cultured macrophages.

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Background: Recurrent events frequently occur after venous thromboembolism (VTE) and remain difficult to predict based on established genetic, clinical, and proteomic contributors. The role of circulating microRNAs (miRNAs) has yet to be explored in detail.

Objectives: To identify circulating miRNAs predictive of recurrent VTE or death, and to interpret their mechanistic involvement.

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Article Synopsis
  • - The gut microbiota affects the integrity of the intestinal barrier, and this influence happens partly by inhibiting specific signaling pathways, namely the neuropilin-1 (NRP1) and Hedgehog (Hh) pathways.
  • - Microbial colonization in germ-free mice reduces Hh pathway activity via Toll-like receptor (TLR)-2, leading to lower levels of NRP1, which is essential for maintaining the gut barrier.
  • - Mice lacking NRP1 show decreased Hh signaling and weaker gut barriers, highlighting the importance of NRP1 and microbiota in gut health and structure.
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Background: Thrombo-inflammation is central to COVID-19-associated coagulopathy. TF (tissue factor), a driver of disordered coagulation and inflammation in viral infections, may be a therapeutic target in COVID-19. The safety and efficacy of the novel TF inhibitor rNAPc2 (recombinant nematode anticoagulation protein c2) in COVID-19 are unknown.

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The activation of platelets and coagulation at vascular injury sites is crucial for haemostasis but can promote thrombosis and inflammation in vascular pathologies. Here, we delineate an unexpected spatio-temporal control mechanism of thrombin activity that is platelet orchestrated and locally limits excessive fibrin formation after initial haemostatic platelet deposition. During platelet activation, the abundant platelet glycoprotein (GP) V is cleaved by thrombin.

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Emerging evidence implicates microbial proteolytic activity in ulcerative colitis (UC), but whether it also plays a role in Crohn's disease (CD) remains unclear. We investigated the effects of colonizing adult and neonatal germ-free C57BL/6 mice with CD microbiota, selected based on high (CD-HPA) or low fecal proteolytic activity (CD-LPA), or microbiota from healthy controls with LPA (HC-LPA) or HPA (HC-HPA). We then investigated colitogenic mechanisms in gnotobiotic C57BL/6, and in mice with impaired Nucleotide-binding Oligomerization Domain-2 (NOD2) and Protease-Activated Receptor 2 (PAR2) cleavage resistant mice (; R38E-PAR2 respectively).

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Cancer enhances the risk of venous thromboembolism, but a hypercoagulant microenvironment also promotes cancer progression. Although anticoagulants have been suggested as a potential anticancer treatment, clinical studies on the effect of such modalities on cancer progression have not yet been successful for unknown reasons. In normal physiology, complex formation between the subendothelial-expressed tissue factor (TF) and the blood-borne liver-derived factor VII (FVII) results in induction of the extrinsic coagulation cascade and intracellular signaling via protease-activated receptors (PARs).

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The Fourth Maastricht Consensus Conference on Thrombosis included the following themes. Theme 1: The "coagulome" as a critical driver of cardiovascular disease. Blood coagulation proteins also play divergent roles in biology and pathophysiology, related to specific organs, including brain, heart, bone marrow, and kidney.

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Aims: Traffic noise may play an important role in the development and deterioration of ischaemic heart disease. Thus, we sought to determine the mechanisms of cardiovascular dysfunction and inflammation induced by aircraft noise in a mouse model of myocardial infarction (MI) and in humans with incident MI.

Methods And Results: C57BL/6J mice were exposed to noise alone (average sound pressure level 72 dB; peak level 85 dB) for up to 4 days, resulting in pro-inflammatory aortic gene expression in the myeloid cell adhesion/diapedesis pathways.

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