Skin trauma has many different causes including incision, blunt force, and burn. All of these traumas trigger an immune response. However, it is currently unclear whether the immune response is specific to the etiology of the injury. This study was established to determine whether the immune response to excision and burn injury of equivalent extent was the same. Using a mouse model of a full-thickness 19 mm diameter excision or 19 mm diameter full-thickness burn injury, we examined the innate immune response at the level of serum cytokine induction, whole-blood lymphocyte populations, dendritic cell function/phenotype, and the ensuing adaptive immune responses of CD4 and CD8 T-cell populations. Strikingly, both the innate and adaptive immune system responses differed between the burn and excision injuries. Acute cytokine induction was faster and different in profile to that of excision injury, leading to changes in systemic monocyte and neutrophil levels. Differences in the immune profile between burn and excision were also noted up to day 84 post injury, suggesting that the etiology of injury leads to sustained changes in the response. This may in part underlie clinical observations of differences in patient morbidity and mortality in response to different skin injury types.
