Immunological Aspects of Preterm Birth: Phenotypes of Preterm Birth, Immune Mechanisms, and Pathway Forward bridges reproductive immunology of preterm birth to subtypes, phenotypes, and bedside prevention and treatment. The book reviews the role of the different immune mechanisms during pregnancy that lead to preterm birth, along with the fetal programming effects that are connected to maternal immune activation. In addition, it discusses immune cells and their products and cytokines and chemokines as central for the success of the pregnancy.While our knowledge on the role of immune cells and the inflammatory process in preterm birth has grown exponentially in the last 10 years, connecting basic science to clinical science and the development of new therapeutics has not progressed as rapidly. This book assists researchers in understanding the basic immunologic mechanisms and inflammatory processes associated with preterm birth and fills an urgent need for the development of therapeutics in this space.
Advances in Immunology, Volume 135, the latest in a long-established and highly respected publication, presents current developments and comprehensive reviews in immunology. Articles address the wide range of topics that comprise immunology, with this latest update including chapters on GPCR Biology, the Role of Caveolin-1 in BCR and TCR Receptors, New Developments in the Chemokine Field, and The Complement System in Developmental Neurobiology and Neurodegeneration. Readers will find comprehensive information on molecular and cellular activation mechanisms, phylogeny and molecular evolution and clinical modalities. Edited and authored by the foremost scientists in the field, each volume provides up-to-date information and directions for the future.
The Innate Immune System: A Compositional and Functional Perspective focuses on the components and functionality of the innate immune system, detailing how they work in their own right, and then progressing to cover their relevance to disease and how they interface with the adaptive response. Despite the growing appreciation of the importance of the innate immune system, many classical immunology books still focus predominantly on the adaptive immune response. Not only is this unbalanced, but it fails to reflect the growing synergy between the activation and function of the innate response and the final nature of adaptive response. This book fills the gap in knowledge that is needed to fully understand and appreciate the topic.
Chemokines, the latest volume in the Methods in Enzymology series, continues the legacy of this premier serial with quality chapters authored by leaders in the field. This volume covers research methods in chemokines, and includes sections on such topics as chemokine detection using receptors, tracking cellular responses to chemokines, recognition of GAG-bound chemokines, and the production of chemokine receptor complexes for structural and biophysical studies.
The Innate Immune Response to Non-infectious Stressors: Human and Animal Models highlights fundamental mechanisms of stress response and important findings on how the immune system is affected, and in turn affects such a response. In addition, this book covers the crucial link between stress response and energy metabolism, prompts a re-appraisal of some crucial issues, and helps to define research priorities in this fascinating, somehow elusive field of investigation.
First published in 1943, Vitamins and Hormones is the longest-running serial published by Academic Press. In the early days of the serial, the subjects of vitamins and hormones were quite distinct. The Editorial Board now reflects expertise in the field of hormone action, vitamin action, X-ray crystal structure, physiology, and enzyme mechanisms. Under the capable and qualified editorial leadership of Dr. Gerald Litwack, Vitamins and Hormones continues to publish cutting-edge reviews of interest to endocrinologists, biochemists, nutritionists, pharmacologists, cell biologists, and molecular biologists. Others interested in the structure and function of biologically active molecules like hormones and vitamins will, as always, turn to this series for comprehensive reviews by leading contributors to this and related disciplines.
It is commonly acknowledged that the nervous system and the immune system, those most complex of networks, share attributes beyond their intricacy. Elements common to the two systems include memory, connectivity, flexibility and developmental selection of cellular composition by a rigorous process involving widespread programmed cell death. There is one salient difference: the cells of the immune system are predominantly in constant motion, while post-mitotic neurons and glia are largely fixed in place. Therefore, chemokines, initially characterized as leukocyte chemoattractants, have for the last one and one-half decades been intensely and productively studied in the contexts of inflammation, immunity and hematopoietic development.Only recently have the two fields, neurobiology and immunology, displayed mutual interests in chemokines. This convergence of the two tribes of investigators was catalyzed by the finding that SDF-1 (now known as CXCL12) and its receptor, CXCR4, exerted significant and similar functions in development of both nervous and immune systems. Indeed CXCL12 and CXCR4 were required, in an uncannily similar fashion, for retention of pre-B lymphocytes at sites of maturation in the bone marrow and of neuronal progenitors in the external granule cell layer of the developing cerebellum. Recent reports indicate that chemoattraction of cerebellar granule cells through CXCR4 can be suppressed by reverse signaling initiated by binding of soluble eph receptors to transmembrane ephrin B, thereby establishing a link between chemokine action and a cardinal patterning system of the developing nervous system. As may be anticipated when a dam breaks, a massive influx of correlative observations in the nervous and immune systems is likely to ensue.This volume represents the state of current knowledge. To this end, introductory material for both systems is provided. Basic and advanced 'chemokinology' are presented. The recipe for making a nervous system (both ingredients and instructions for preparation) is described, as are the roles of chemokines and their receptors in making an immune system. Given their importance and complexity, CXCL12/CXCR4 interactions are separately treated in varying contexts.The field of 'neurobiology of chemokines' has not lain fallow during the last ten years. During much of this time the principal focus has been on neuroinflammation. Linking the immune and nervous systems are explanations of the functions of chemokines and their receptors for resident brain macrophages, the microglia, the unique cerebrovascular endothelium and angiogenesis.Understanding human disease is the goal of much of this research. New discoveries are being made and reported at a gratifying rate. It is expected that this volume will promote the steady production and application of useful new knowledge in this developing field. It provides a unique single-source database for basic neurobiology highlighting the fundamental aspects of chemokines and discussing the relations of chemokine science to animal models and human disease.
Completely revised and expanded, this second edition of The Cytokine FactsBook is the most up-to-date reference manual available for all current well-characterized interleukins, cytokines, and their receptors. An additional 52 cytokines are included, doubling the number of entries from the previous edition. The key properties of each cytokine are described and presented in a very accessible format with diagrams for each of the receptors. The Cytokine FactsBook includes free online access to the regularly updated Cytokine Webfacts. Cytokine Webfacts is a web-based comprehensive compendium of facts about cytokines and their receptors that includes a variety of data representations, such as text, signal pathway diagrams and 3D images. This exciting resource is integrated into other databases via hypertext links to provide a unique network, and contains a web-enabled version of RasMol for viewing structures.