Cell Death in Non-Cancer Related Diseases

Dear Colleagues,

Cell death is a physiological regulator of cell proliferation, and both processes exert profound effects on growth and development throughout life. On a related note, cancer is characterized by the faulty regulation of cell division and death, a process which promotes uncontrolled tumor growth and replicative immortality. However, despite cancer, most diseases are currently associated with aberrant cell death in some way. Moreover, cell death has also been shown to support recovery from acute injury, deal with infection and regulate immunity. Appropriately, more and more studies have provided evidence that cell death can also be a potent trigger of inflammation. In particular, lytic forms of cell death are thought to play a highly inflammatory role by mediating the release of intracellular components that act as danger-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs) from the dying cells, which activate immune responses in bystander immune cells. Furthermore, this increases local inflammation and promotes the production of cytokines and chemokines that modulate the innate immune response. Therefore, cell death can be both a consequence as well as a cause of inflammation, which can be difficult to distinguish in non-cancer-related diseases. Nevertheless, aberrant cell death, expressed either by excessively severe or reduced cell death, is increasingly being recognized as one of the causes of acute or chronic inflammation, particularly in rheumatic diseases and other inflammatory conditions. Therefore, approaches that modulate cell death have therapeutic uses for the treatment of these diseases.

This Special Issue of Biomedicines will focus on the role of cell death in acute and chronic human diseases, including inflammatory and infectious diseases and disorders, as well as approaches to modulating cell death for the treatment of these diseases. This Special Issue welcomes original research articles and review manuscripts.

Dr. Ulrike Heinicke
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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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.

• translational medicine
• regulated cell death
• immunology
• inflammation
• experimental medicine
• DAMPs