Infection, Inflammation and Immunity in Health and Disease

A special issue of Medicina (ISSN 1648-9144). This special issue belongs to the section "Infectious Disease".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 1 June 2025 | Viewed by 841

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UND Life Sciences, 2221 NW 5th St, Battle Ground, WA 98604, USA
Interests: essential fatty acids; eicosanoids; cytokines; free radicals; nitric oxide; melatonin and their role in various clinical conditions
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Humans are constantly exposed to various environmental agents, including but not limited to microbes. To overcome the deleterious actions of these environmental agents, the human body needs to have a robust immune system and a timely inflammation resolution capacity in order to maintain normal health and homeostasis. Thus, infection, inflammation, and immunity play a significant role in human health. Factors that regulate the body’s capacity to adequately deal with inflammation when needed and its resolution in a timely fashion, induce a robust immune response against microbes, and perform the appropriate repairs of the damage induced by various environmental agents need to be deciphered, understood and exploited in the prevention and management of various diseases. Some of the factors that are important in human health and disease include cytokines, eicosanoids, growth factors, adhesion molecules, etc., along with various genes that regulate their secretion and function. It is important to know how all of these endogenous molecules interact with each other in the regulation of infection, inflammation and immunity to maintain homeostasis. These factors have a fundamental role in metabolic, immunological, degenerative and genetic diseases across various subspecialties of medicine, such as rheumatology, cardiology, gastroenterology, genetics, oncology, endocrinology, nephrology, etc. Gene therapy, siRNA-based drugs, exosomes, immune check point inhibitors, and other modes of therapy may ultimately prove to be of value in several diseases. It is the purpose of this Special Issue to bridge the gap between the laboratory and the clinic and to highlight the advances in various areas that may have an impact on the prevention and management of various diseases including but not limited to infections, inflammation, immunological diseases, genetic diseases and inborn errors of metabolism and ageing. Coronary heart disease, atherosclerosis, hyperlipidemia, osteoarthritis and sarcopenia of senility are all considered as low-grade systemic inflammatory conditions.

This Special Issue aims to cover various aspects of infection, inflammation, and immunity applicable to various diseases/disorders. All types of manuscripts are welcome for publication in this Special Issue.

Prof. Dr. Das Undurti
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • infection
  • inflammation
  • immunity
  • oncogenesis
  • cancer
  • autoimmunity
  • ageing

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

17 pages, 3518 KiB  
Article
Lymphocyte Inhibition Mechanisms and Immune Checkpoints in COVID-19: Insights into Prognostic Markers and Disease Severity
by Martina Schniederova, Anna Bobcakova, Marian Grendar, Adam Markocsy, Andrej Ceres, Michal Cibulka, Dusan Dobrota and Milos Jesenak
Medicina 2025, 61(2), 189; https://doi.org/10.3390/medicina61020189 - 22 Jan 2025
Viewed by 415
Abstract
Background and Objectives: Immune checkpoint inhibitors such as PD-1 and TIM-3 play an important role in regulating the host immune response and are proposed as potential prognostic markers and therapeutic targets in severe cases of COVID-19. We evaluated the expression of PD-1 [...] Read more.
Background and Objectives: Immune checkpoint inhibitors such as PD-1 and TIM-3 play an important role in regulating the host immune response and are proposed as potential prognostic markers and therapeutic targets in severe cases of COVID-19. We evaluated the expression of PD-1 and TIM-3 on T cells, as well as the concentration of sPD-1 in plasma, to clarify the role of these molecules in patients infected with SARS-CoV-2. Materials and Methods: In this retrospective observational study, we analysed the expression of PD-1 and TIM-3 on CD4+ and CD8+ T cells upon admission and after 7 days of hospitalisation in 770 adult patients. We also evaluated sPD-1 levels in the plasma of 145 patients at different stages of COVID-19 and of 11 control subjects. Molecules were determined using conventional flow cytometry and ELISA and the data were statistically processed. Results: We observed a significantly higher expression of PD-1 on CD4+ cells in deceased patients than in those with mild-to-moderate disease. All patients with COVID-19 exhibited a significantly higher expression of TIM-3 on both CD4+ and CD8+ T cells compared to controls. After 1 week of hospitalisation, there was no significant change in PD-1 or TIM-3 expression on CD4+ or CD8+ T cells across the studied groups. sPD-1 concentrations were not significantly different between survivors and non-survivors. Plasma sPD-1 levels did not correlate with PD-1 expression on T cells, but a significant correlation was observed between CD4+ PD-1 and CD8+ PD-1. Using machine-learning algorithms, we supported our observations and confirmed immunological variables capable of predicting survival, with AUC = 0.786. Conclusions: Analysis of the immune response may be useful for monitoring and predicting the course of COVID-19 upon admission. However, it is essential to evaluate complex immune parameters in conjunction with other key clinical and laboratory indicators. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Infection, Inflammation and Immunity in Health and Disease)
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