The Protein Profiles of Local Tissue Postoperative Incision Infection After Plate Internal Fixation of Calcaneal Fractures

Abstract

Background: Nowadays, the internal fixation has been an effective way for calcaneal fractures treatment. However, postoperative incision infection was one of the common complications found after the internal fixation operation and better treatment to avoid the infection is in need. Objective: In this work, we systematically preformed a comparative proteomic analysis between necrotic tissues and normal soft tissues aiming to find the molecular changes of the tissue during the fixation for better understanding the diseases. Method: The Necrotic Tissues (NTs) samples (n = 3) and the control soft tissues control (NC) samples (n = 3) which was 2-3 cm away from the NT were collected after the surgery. A LC-MS/MS based label free proteomic quantitation strategy was used to compare the proteome alterations followed by detailed bioinformatic analysis. Results: A total of 902 and 1286 protein groups were quantified in the NT group and the NC group separately, with 233 proteins upregulated and 484 proteins downregulated in the NT group. Those differently expressed proteins were highly correlated with the metabolic pathways, especially those downregulated proteins in the necrotic tissue indicating an inactive cell state. In addition, the detailed functional analysis showed that the upregulated proteins in necrotic tissue were highly enriched in the disease-related functions such as necrosis. Conclusion: This alerted us to clean the wound in time and found a safer strategy for internal fixation. Altogether, the emerging understanding of the proteomic properties in the necrotic tissue will guide the development of new strategies for internal fixation of calcaneal fractures.