Heme is an iron-containing complex involved in fundamental cellular functions including oxygen transport. Free heme accumulation blood, during intravascular hemolysis and other pathological conditions, triggers vascular dysfunction, pro-inflammatory, prothrombotic cascade. Studies by May et al present a novel finding that ligand for RAGE binds to the V domain of induces oligomerization. Further...

Atherosclerosis (AS) is a chronic, progressive, multifactorial disease mostly affecting large and medium-sized elastic and muscular arteries. It has formerly been considered a bland lipid storage disease. Currently, multiple independent pathways of evidence suggest this pathological condition is a peculiar form of inflammation, triggered by cholesterol-rich lipoproteins and influenced both by e...

Cytokines appear to be major regulators of adipose tissue metabolism. Therapeutic modulation of cytokine systems offers the possibility of major changes in adipose tissue behaviour. Cytokines within adipose tissue originate from adipocyte, preadipocyte and other cell types. mRNA expression studies show that adipocytes can synthesise both tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha) and several inte...

Hypoxia and inflammation are strictly interconnected both concurring to prostate cancer progression. Numerous reports highlight the role of tumor cells in the synthesis of pro-inflammatory molecules and show that hypoxia can modulate a number of these genes contributing substantially to the increase of cancer aggressiveness. However, little is known about the importance of the tumor phenotype i...

The systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) is the predominantly cytokine-mediated, pro-inflammatory response of the host to invading pathogens and is considered the hallmark sign of sepsis. Molecular components of this response can be divided into cytokines, plasma cascades and acute phase proteins while the predominant cellular components are leukocytes and the endothelium. Highthrough...

OBJECTIVES Inflammatory cytokines are implicated in the pathophysiology of both stroke and depression, and their production is influenced by the transcriptional activity of particular gene polymorphisms. We hypothesised that alleles related to higher pro-inflammatory and/or lower anti-inflammatory cytokine production would be associated with post-stroke depression (PSD). METHODS In 276 stroke...

A hallmark of SLE is the presence of elevated levels of circulating anti-nuclear autoantibodies specific towards chromatin, histones or dsDNA. Understanding the regulation of antibody production is therefore of utmost importance in understanding lupus pathogenesis. Spearheaded by the identification of accumulating immunosuppressive neutrophils in cancer patients, the nature and function of neut...

Shiga toxins (Stxs) are bacterial virulence factors produced by Shigella dysenteriae serotype 1 and Escherichia coli strains. Stxs are critical factors for the development of diseases such as severe bloody diarrhea and hemolytic uremic syndrome. Additionally, Stxs trigger the secretion of pro- inflammatory cytokines and chemokines, particularly in monocytes or macrophages. The inflammatory cyto...