Cytokine storms in infectious diseases

Excerpt

The term “cytokine storm” has been adopted in the past several decades as a phrase to describe the aberrant production of soluble mediators and the accompanying immunopathology that ensues following severe viral and bacterial infections. However, “cytokine storm” was initially coined in the early 1990s to characterize the pathological condition that accompanied organ transplantation, an allogenic response to foreign tissue called graft vs host disease [1, 2]. More recently, aberrant immune responses and cytokine production have been associated with the pathogenesis of multiple disease states ranging from viral infection to neurological disorders [3]. Despite a definitive link of cytokine and chemokine levels with morbidity and mortality following infectious insults, no effective therapeutic treatments or modalities have been developed to quell the pathology associated with cytokine storm. In fact, the apparent intractability of tested therapies to subdue pathology has led some to postulate whether robust cytokine and chemokine production observed during these disease states is directly causal to the clinical manifestations. One major reason for this is that the kinetics, cellular sources, and cytokine milieu that mediate disease pathology remain poorly understood. This special issue of Seminars in Immunopathology entitled “Cytokine Storms in Infectious Diseases” focuses on the role of cytokines and other soluble mediators and their function in promoting pathology during infectious diseases and highlights emerging data that may point the way toward novel therapeutic interventions. …