Search

In humans, biofilm is a well-known cause of delayed healing and low-grade inflammation of chronic wounds. In horses, biofilm formation in wounds has been studied to a very limited degree. The objective of this study was thus to investigate the occurrence of biofilm in equine experimental wounds healing by secondary intention. Tissue biopsies from non-contaminated, experimental excisional shoulder and limb wounds were obtained on day 1–2, day 7–10 and day 14–15 post-wounding. Limb wounds were either un-bandaged or bandaged to induce exuberant granulation tissue (EGT) formation and thereby impaired healing. Presence of biofilm in tissue biopsies was assessed by peptide nucleic acid fluorescence in situ hybridization (PNA FISH) and confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM). Bandaged limb wounds developed EGT and displayed delayed healing, while shoulder and un-bandaged limb wounds healed normally. Biofilm was detected in limb wounds only. At day 14–15 biofilm was significantly more prevalent in bandaged limb wounds than in un-bandaged limb wounds (P = 0.003). Further, bandaged limb wounds had a statistically significant increase in biofilm burden from day 7–10 to day 14–15 (P = 0.009). The finding that biofilm was most prevalent in bandaged limb wounds with EGT formation suggests that biofilm may be linked to delayed wound healing in horses, as has been observed in humans. The inability to clear bacteria could be related to hypoxia and low-grade inflammation in the EGT, but the interaction between biofilm forming bacteria and wound healing in horses needs further elucidation.

Progress in MS-based methods for veterinary research and diagnostics is lagging behind compared to the human research, and proteome data of domestic animals is still not well represented in open source data repositories. This is particularly true for the equine species. Here we present a first Equine PeptideAtlas encompassing high-resolution tandem MS analyses of 51 samples representing a selection of equine tissues and body fluids from healthy and diseased animals. The raw data were processed through the Trans-Proteomic Pipeline to yield high quality identification of proteins and peptides. The current release comprises 24 131 distinct peptides representing 2636 canonical proteins observed at false discovery rates of 0.2% at the peptide level and 1.4% at the protein level. Data from the Equine PeptideAtlas are available for experimental planning, validation of new datasets, and as a proteomic data mining resource. The advantages of the Equine PeptideAtlas are demonstrated by examples of mining the contents for information on potential and well-known equine acute phase proteins, which have extensive general interest in the veterinary clinic. The extracted information will support further analyses, and emphasizes the value of the Equine PeptideAtlas as a resource for the design of targeted quantitative proteomic studies.

Microdialysis is a method for sampling compounds from extracellular fluid with minimal tissue trauma. Small hollow probes that are 0.2–0.5 mm in diameter are inserted into the tissue and slowly perfused. The probe membrane is semi-permeable and a flux of the solutes occurs exclusively according to the concentration gradients. The recovered dialysate reflects changes in the composition of the extracellular water phase with a minor time delay. Because microdialysis is a continuous sampling method, it differs from point sample methods, such as blood sampling. The ability to obtain local measurements in the tissues has led to important discoveries in the detection of tissue changes within the areas of pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, pathology and pathophysiology. New technological solutions, such as transportable pumps, fluid collectors and bedside analysers, have made microdialysis an indispensable tool for the surveillance of critically ill human patients, such as after brain injuries and reconstructive surgeries. The use of microdialysis in equine medicine has been sparingly described with only 14 published studies within muscle, pulmonary and hoof lamellar tissue, nasal mucosa, intestinal wall, uterine, allantoic and cerebrospinal fluid and blood. Only a few papers have been published within each area, indicating that few equine researchers are aware of the unique opportunities provided by the technique. This review discusses the theory and applications of microdialysis with a special emphasis on clinical and experimental equine studies, which may be useful to veterinary experimental and clinical researchers.

OBJECTIVES Aberrant wound healing with formation of exuberant granulation tissue (EGT) occurs frequently in horses and may affect their athletic career and quality of life. The objective of the study was to determine mRNA expression levels of serum amyloid A (SAA) in normal and aberrant wound healing in horses. METHODS Experimental wounds were made in six horses on both metatarsi and on regio brachii. One limb was bandaged to provoke formation of EGT. Biopsies were collected on day 21 and were divided in three groups: body wounds (regio brachii), unbandaged limb wounds (normal healing), and bandaged limb wounds (aberrant healing with formation of EGT). All biopsies were examined for the relative mRNA expression level of SAA using qRT-PCR. Differences in SAA expression levels between the three groups were analyzed by Kruskal-Wallis test and Dunns test. RESULTS SAA mRNA level was significantly higher (P < 0.01) in limb wounds healing with EGT formation than in body and limb wounds with normal healing. In body wounds and limb wounds with normal healing SAA expression was very low, in EGT SAA expression levels varied from low to very high. CONCLUSIONS SAA is a major equine acute phase protein, which is produced in the liver and several extrahepatic tissues during inflammatory conditions. This study shows that cells in EGT derived from horses produce SAA. This may be related to the length of the inflammatory phase of the wound healing, which is short (approximately 3 days) in wounds with normal healing, but protracted in wounds developing EGT. Chronic inflammation might facilitate binding of SAA-containing high density lipoproteins (HDL) to extracellular vascular proteoglycans, which would favour retention and modification of HDL by the vascular matrix. Such changes could be the pathophysiological reason underlying endothelial cell dysfunction and subsequently hypoxia, wh