The Role of Alarmins in Human Pathologies: Impact on Diagnostic and Therapeutic Approaches

A special issue of Biomedicines (ISSN 2227-9059). This special issue belongs to the section "Immunology and Immunotherapy".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 April 2024 | Viewed by 5901

Special Issue Editors

Head of Allergology and Clinical Immunology Unit, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Genoa and San Bartolomeo Hospital, Sarzana, Italy
Interests: immunodeficiency; autoimmunity; neuro-endocrino-immunology; pharmacogenomics; soluble molecules; immune-mediated diseases; allergies; vaccines
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, School and Operative Unit of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, University of Messina, 98125 Messina, Italy
Interests: inflammatory mediators; the citokine network (interleukins, chemokines, adhesion molecules, lipoxines); the oxidative stress in various areas of clinical immunology; allergy; oncology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Alarmins are endogenous proteins or peptides that are substitutively expressed and have chemotactic roles. When alarmins are released in excess as a result of injury or powerful stimuli, they cause the dangerous effects of a cytokine storm, resulting in the development of what have been recognized as "damage associated molecular models (DAMP)". These mediators have been shown to play a fundamental role in the pathogenesis of numerous allergic and immune-mediated diseases by the “IL-31/IL-33 axis”, as well as in the neuroinflammatory processes involved in multiple brain conditions, including stroke and neurodegenerative diseases. Furthermore, alarmins also appear to be involved in metastatic progression and drug resistance of some forms of cancer, such as multiple myeloma. In the future, the assay of these cytokines could be useful for the diagnosis, staging and identification of specific therapeutic molecules capable of controlling their release and, thus, provide information on disease progression.

Dr. Giuseppe Murdaca
Dr. Sebastiano Gangemi
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Biomedicines is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • alarmins and immune system
  • alarmins and allergic diseases
  • alarmins and immune-mediated diseases
  • alarmins and neurodegenerative diseases
  • alarmins and cerebrovascular diseases
  • alarmins and cancer
  • alarmins and hematological malignancies

Published Papers (2 papers)

Order results
Result details
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Review

12 pages, 870 KiB  
Review
TSLP and HMGB1: Inflammatory Targets and Potential Biomarkers for Precision Medicine in Asthma and COPD
by Fabiana Furci, Giuseppe Murdaca, Corrado Pelaia, Egidio Imbalzano, Girolamo Pelaia, Marco Caminati, Alessandro Allegra, Gianenrico Senna and Sebastiano Gangemi
Biomedicines 2023, 11(2), 437; https://doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines11020437 - 02 Feb 2023
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2536
Abstract
The airway epithelium, through pattern recognition receptors expressed transmembrane or intracellularly, acts as a first line of defense for the lungs against many environmental triggers. It is involved in the release of alarmin cytokines, which are important mediators of inflammation, with receptors widely [...] Read more.
The airway epithelium, through pattern recognition receptors expressed transmembrane or intracellularly, acts as a first line of defense for the lungs against many environmental triggers. It is involved in the release of alarmin cytokines, which are important mediators of inflammation, with receptors widely expressed in structural cells as well as innate and adaptive immune cells. Knowledge of the role of epithelial cells in orchestrating the immune response and mediating the clearance of invading pathogens and dead/damaged cells to facilitate resolution of inflammation is necessary to understand how, in many chronic lung diseases, there is a persistent inflammatory response that becomes the basis of underlying pathogenesis. This review will focus on the role of pulmonary epithelial cells and of airway epithelial cell alarmins, in particular thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP) and high mobility group box 1 (HMGB1), as key mediators in driving the inflammation of chronic lung diseases, such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), evaluating the similarities and differences. Moreover, emerging concepts regarding the therapeutic role of molecules that act on airway epithelial cell alarmins will be explored for a precision medicine approach in the context of pulmonary diseases, thus allowing the use of these molecules as possible predictive biomarkers of clinical and biological response. Full article
Show Figures

Figure 1

19 pages, 717 KiB  
Review
Involvement of Il-33 in the Pathogenesis and Prognosis of Major Respiratory Viral Infections: Future Perspectives for Personalized Therapy
by Giuseppe Murdaca, Francesca Paladin, Alessandro Tonacci, Matteo Borro, Monica Greco, Alessandra Gerosa, Stefania Isola, Alessandro Allegra and Sebastiano Gangemi
Biomedicines 2022, 10(3), 715; https://doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines10030715 - 19 Mar 2022
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 2809
Abstract
Interleukin (IL)-33 is a key cytokine involved in type-2 immunity and allergic airway disease. At the level of lung epithelial cells, where it is clearly expressed, IL-33 plays an important role in both innate and adaptive immune responses in mucosal organs. It has [...] Read more.
Interleukin (IL)-33 is a key cytokine involved in type-2 immunity and allergic airway disease. At the level of lung epithelial cells, where it is clearly expressed, IL-33 plays an important role in both innate and adaptive immune responses in mucosal organs. It has been widely demonstrated that in the course of respiratory virus infections, the release of IL-33 increases, with consequent pro-inflammatory effects and consequent exacerbation of the clinical symptoms of chronic respiratory diseases. In our work, we analyzed the pathogenetic and prognostic involvement of IL-33 during the main respiratory viral infections, with particular interest in the recent SARS-CoV-2virus pandemic and the aim of determining a possible connection point on which to act with a targeted therapy that is able to improve the clinical outcome of patients. Full article
Show Figures

Figure 1

Back to TopTop