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2011, 654 pages,
ISBN 978-3-89967-737-9,
Price: 60,- Euro |
This book represents Part 1 of a two-part monograph in which the
emerging role of “Innate Alloimmunity” in organ transplantation is
comprehensively presented and described for the first time worldwide. In
fact, the last decade has witnessed the exciting emergence of innate
immunity – a new area in immunology, transplantology, vascular biology
and other medical disciplines – that has revolutionized our
understanding not only of host-parasite interactions and their impact on
defense mechanisms in infectious diseases but also of transplant
recipient-donor organ interactions and their impact on acute and chronic
allograft rejection.
This Part 1 of the monograph, devoted to the topic of innate immunity
and host defense, conveys to the reader the basic knowledge from this
expanding field of medical research in an instructive and convincing
way. Accordingly, the book highlights some of the most important aspects
of host defense that may be of particular relevance for those clinicians
and researchers working in the field of organ transplantation and its
related medical disciplines.
In carefully selected seven chapters, the author addresses seven major
topics dedicated to (1) the evolution of oxygen toxicity and its role in
host defense, (2) some historical remarks to innate immunity, (3)
selected evolutionary aspects of innate immunity, emphasizing that
defense responses in primitive life forms like plants and insects share
a clear evolutionary relationship with human responses to infection, (4)
the whole family of innate immune cells including macrophages,
leukocytes, mast cells, epithelial cells and endothelial cells as well
as innate humoral factors including complement and natural IgM, (5)
pattern recognition receptors and their exogenous agonists (ligands) in
host defense against pathogens including TLRs, NLRs, CLRs, and RLHs, (6)
innate host defense peptides and soluble mediator substances, and (7)
dendritic cells translating innate to adaptive immunity. Every chapter
closes with a detailed review of the literature that comprises a wealth
of valuable references. What makes this book special is a large number
of accompanying colored figures that, for example, plausibly illustrate
the different signaling pathways triggered by the various recognition
receptors and leading to the execution of distinct functions of various
cells of the innate immune system.
The book must be considered an invaluable resource for anyone interested
in this emerging field of transplant immunology – in particular,
clinicians who work in the field of transplantation or
transplantation-related medical disciplines, and strive for exploring
innate immune mechanisms involved in host defense against various
infections that plague their patients.
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