Presentation Time: 1:30-1:50
Home University: North Carolina Central University
Research Mentor: Dr. Rob Maile, Burnett Womack - UNC School Of Medicine
Program: 21st Century Environmental Health Scholars
Research Title: Differences in Estradiol Levels After Burn Injury
The American Burn Association estimates ~450,000 people in the United States will suffer from burn injury each year, which results in ~3,500 deaths per year due to severe immune dysregulation. Female burn patients suffer higher mortality rates compared to males. Estradiol is involved in the regulation of local and systemic interleukin-6 (IL-6) levels, which has been demonstrated by others to positively correlates with poor outcomes following burn. We hypothesize that estradiol levels increase after burn injury and contributes to local and systemic immune dysregulation. We utilized plasma from 1) human burn patients admitted to the North Carolina Jaycee Burn Center and 2) our murine model of burn injury, in which C57BL/6 mice are exposed to a 20% total body surface area burn injury. We measured human estradiol levels 1-3 days after burn injury and murine estradiol levels 3 and 7 days after injury by ELISA. In humans there were differences in levels at these timepoints (p<0.05). In mice we observed a difference in the change in murine estradiol levels between males and females 7 days after injury (p < 0.01). These data suggest burn injury upregulates estradiol in both humans and mice following burn injury whereby this is more robust in females at later stages of burn injury and thus contributing to female-associated poor clinical outcomes. We are currently correlating estradiol levels to IL-6 levels.