Innate Immune Pathways in Host Defense
1Department of Immunology, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, MS 351, Room E7004, 262 Danny Thomas Place, Memphis, TN 38105-3678, USA
2Department of Biochemistry, Ghent University; VIB Department of Medical Protein Research, Albert Baertsoenkaai 3, 9000 Ghent, Belgium
3Department of Internal Medicine, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA
Innate Immune Pathways in Host Defense
Description
The innate immune system is a critical component of host defense against invading microbial pathogens. It is responsible for mounting proper inflammatory and repair responses that contribute to elimination of the invading pathogen, and for instructing the adaptive immune system to develop prolonged immunity against microbial pathogens. This is accomplished through regulation of transcriptional and posttranslational programs that culminate in the production of proinflammatory cytokines and chemokines, the induction of type I and II interferon responses, autophagy responses, and the induction of programmed cell death modes that eliminate infected host cells and expose intracellular pathogens to surveillance by the immune system.
We particularly take an interest in manuscripts that report on the relevance of innate immune cells and pathways in protection against viral, bacterial, and fungal pathogens, their roles in the induction of inflammatory and repair responses, therapy, or delineate the characteristics of innate immune pathways. Reviews and original papers that summarize the results of clinical, preclinical, or experimental setups analyzing molecules aimed at modifying innate immune pathways for therapeutic purposes are welcome. Moreover, papers dealing with criteria for optimal analysis and detection methods of innate immune parameters in the blood, leading to a guideline as a tool for clinical guidance, would be of great interest (specificity, sensitivity, reproducibility, robustness, objective read-out, potential for automated analysis, quantification, characterization of immune cell subpopulations, and proven clinical guidance). Potential topics include, but are not limited to:
- Innate immune responses in clinical guidance for infectious disease
- Targeting innate immune pathways for therapy
- Regulation of innate immune pathways by microRNAs
- Signaling pathways of the innate immune system
- Innate immune mechanisms in plants and invertebrates
- Role of natural killer cells in immune surveillance and viral clearance
- The role of inflammasomes in anti-infectious immunity
- The innate immune system in inflammatory chronic diseases
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