The role of inflammation in autoimmune disease: a therapeutic target

Front Immunol. 2023 Oct 4:14:1267091. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2023.1267091. eCollection 2023.

Abstract

Autoimmune diseases (AIDs) are immune disorders whose incidence and prevalence are increasing year by year. AIDs are produced by the immune system's misidentification of self-antigens, seemingly caused by excessive immune function, but in fact they are the result of reduced accuracy due to the decline in immune system function, which cannot clearly identify foreign invaders and self-antigens, thus issuing false attacks, and eventually leading to disease. The occurrence of AIDs is often accompanied by the emergence of inflammation, and inflammatory mediators (inflammatory factors, inflammasomes) play an important role in the pathogenesis of AIDs, which mediate the immune process by affecting innate cells (such as macrophages) and adaptive cells (such as T and B cells), and ultimately promote the occurrence of autoimmune responses, so targeting inflammatory mediators/pathways is one of emerging the treatment strategies of AIDs. This review will briefly describe the role of inflammation in the pathogenesis of different AIDs, and give a rough introduction to inhibitors targeting inflammatory factors, hoping to have reference significance for subsequent treatment options for AIDs.

Keywords: B cells; T cells; autoimmunity; inflammation; pro-inflammatory factors.

Publication types

  • Review
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Autoantigens
  • Autoimmune Diseases*
  • Autoimmunity*
  • Humans
  • Inflammation
  • Inflammation Mediators

Substances

  • Inflammation Mediators
  • Autoantigens

Grants and funding

This work is funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 82073311), The Natural Science Foundation of Sichuan Province (No. 2022JDTD0025), The Science and Technology Projection Chengdu of Sichuan Province of China (No. 2022-YF05-01620-SN), The Key Research and Development Program of Science and Technology Department of Sichuan Province (No. 2019YFS0514), The Open Research Fund of State Key Laboratory of Southwestern Chinese Medicine Resources (No. SCMR202105), The Open Fund of the State Key Laboratory of Traditional Chinese Medicine Resources in Southwest China (No. 2021HX026), The Open Research Fund of Cheng du University of Traditional Chinese Medicine Key Laboratory of Systematic Research of Distinctive Chinese Medicine Resources in South west China (No. 2018GZ2011005), The State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine (No. JDZX2015210), The Clinical Research and Transformation Fund of Sichuan Provincial People’s Hospital (No. 2021LZ03), Health Care Scientific and Technology Project of Sichuan Province (2022-219).