A marijuana-like compound holds out promise as a new treatment for a severe autoimmune skin disease called skin lupus, according to a study published recently by a multicenter team including researchers at the George Washington ...
Bio & Medicine
Nov 2, 2023
0
9
Northwestern Medicine scientists have developed a more effective way of creating nanotherapeutic vaccines and medicines, according to a new study published in ACS Nano.
Bio & Medicine
Oct 31, 2023
0
16
A team of scientists has developed a new solution for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The work has been published in Nature Nanotechnology.
Bio & Medicine
Oct 26, 2023
0
22
National University of Singapore (NUS) pharmaceutical scientists have developed multi-functional synthetic peptide nanonets for relieving inflammation caused by bacterial infection. This is achieved by concurrent trapping ...
Bio & Medicine
May 22, 2023
0
30
People infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, may experience genome structure changes that not only may explain our immunological symptoms after infection, but also potentially link to long COVID, according ...
Cell & Microbiology
Mar 23, 2023
0
182
Land snails and their mucus were used in ancient times by Hippocrates and Pliny to treat pain associated with burns, abscesses and other wounds. Inspired by this ancient therapy, Prof. Wu Mingyi and his team at the Kunming ...
Biochemistry
Feb 3, 2023
0
103
Virtual memory CD8+ T cells (TVM) are a relatively recent discovery in humans. A new review discusses what is known about them from mouse models and their cellular equivalents in humans, as described in the Journal of Interferon ...
Cell & Microbiology
Sep 28, 2022
0
3
A new research paper was published in Oncotarget on August 3, 2022, entitled, "A novel mechanism of regulation of the oncogenic transcription factor GLI3 by toll-like receptor signaling."
Cell & Microbiology
Aug 9, 2022
0
37
Fever, cough, sore throat—symptoms in the spotlight in the era of COVID-19—are just some of the telltale signs of our body's immune system kicking into action against an unwanted intruder. Whether triggered by an infection, ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jun 2, 2022
1
365
Scientists from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) have presented a new method for generating metabolic profiles of individual cells. The method, which combines fluorescence ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Jul 6, 2021
0
9
Cytokines (Greek cyto-, cell; and -kinos, movement) are a category of signaling molecules that are used extensively in cellular communication. They are proteins, peptides, or glycoproteins. The term cytokine encompasses a large and diverse family of polypeptide regulators that are produced widely throughout the body by cells of diverse embryological origin.
Basically, the term "cytokine" has been used to refer to the immunomodulating agents (interleukins, interferons, etc.). Conflicting data exists about what is termed a cytokine and what is termed a hormone. Anatomic and structural distinctions between cytokines and classic hormones are fading as we learn more about each. Classic protein hormones circulate in nanomolar (10-9) concentrations that usually vary by less than one order of magnitude. In contrast, some cytokines (such as IL-6) circulate in picomolar (10-12) concentrations that can increase up to 1,000-fold during trauma or infection. The widespread distribution of cellular sources for cytokines may be a feature that differentiates them from hormones. Virtually all nucleated cells, but especially endo/epithelial cells and resident macrophages (many near the interface with the external environment) are potent producers of IL-1, IL-6, and TNF-α. In contrast, classic hormones, such as insulin, are secreted from discrete glands (e.g., the pancreas). As of 2008, the current terminology refers to cytokines as immunomodulating agents. However, more research is needed in this area of defining cytokines and hormones.
The action of cytokines may be autocrine, paracrine, and endocrine. Cytokines are critical to the development and functioning of both the innate and adaptive immune response, although not limited to just the immune system. They are often secreted by immune cells that have encountered a pathogen, thereby activating and recruiting further immune cells to increase the system's response to the pathogen. Cytokines are also involved in several developmental processes during embryogenesis.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
