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2011, 760 pages,
ISBN 978-3-89967-738-6,
Price: 60,- Euro |
This book represents Part 2 of the 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, during the last decade, accumulating experimental and clinical
evidence has been published in favor and support of the author’s
original Injury Hypothesis holding that it is the primary allograft
injury that – in addition to its foreignness – induces innate immune
pathways (1) leading to alloimmune-mediated allograft rejection, and (2)
contributing to the development of alloatherosclerosis and allofibrosis
as major features of chronic allograft dysfunction. Accordingly, in this
book, the author has collected and meticulously described a wealth of
those supporting experimental and clinical data that have recently led
to those revolutionizing notions in transplant medicine.
In carefully selected chapters, the author addresses eight major topics
dedicated to (1) early appreciation in the 1990s of the injured
allograft as an acutely inflamed organ reflecting first clues to the
existence of innate alloimmunity, (2) oxidative allograft injury as
revisited at the beginning of the new millennium, (3) recognition by
various pattern recognition receptors of damage-associated molecular
patterns, the DAMPs that, for didactic reasons, are divided into four
different classes, (4) role of pattern recognition receptors in
mediating oxidative tissue injury via activation of dendritic cells,
innate lymphocytes, and T lymphocytes, (5) experimental and clinical
findings in direct and indirect support of the existence of innate
alloimmunity, (6) chronic allograft dysfunction in terms of a model
disease of innate immunity, (7) principles and options of pharmaceutics,
biologics, and genetic engineering for designing innovative
immunosuppressive strategies in light of innate alloimmunity – by also
outlining the ethical problem and the background hurdles not to develop
innate alloimmunity-suppressing drugs today, and (8) innate alloimmunity
and blood coagulation in terms of a few remarks within an appendix.
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 the development of acute allograft
rejection and chronic allograft dysfunction as well as injury-induced
”sterile” tissue inflammation in general. |
