The Complement System
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The Complement System
Author: Janos Szebeni
language: en
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Release Date: 2004-06-10
The Complement System: Novel Roles in Health and Disease surveys the advances in basic and applied research on the complement system over the past few years. Complement is a major protein network in blood that has been traditionally conceived as part of the immune system, a proinflammatory cascade engaged in nonspecific antimicrobial defence. However, it became clear recently that this system also plays an essential role in specific, adaptive immune responses, as well as in many basic physiological processes including cardiovascular regulation, pregnancy and tissue regeneration, just to mention a few. Complement proteins are widely involved in the immune evasion tactics of infectious microbes and cancer cells, and derangement of complement function contributes to numerous autoimmune, allergic and acute catastrophic diseases. Because pharmacological manipulation of the complement system provides therapeutic benefit in many of these conditions, we may be very close to widespread clinical use of a new class of drugs influencing complement activation or action. In fact, complementology may be one of the most versatile and dynamic subdisciplines in medicine today. The 25 reviews of this volume, written by prominent experts, provide state-of-art insights into the various aspects of an amazing progress in this field.
The Complement System
Author: K. Rother
language: en
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Release Date: 2012-12-06
The aim of the former editions remains unchanged in the present updated version, namely to put forward a general and comprehensive review on complement. It is intended not only for individual investigators working in this specific field, but also for those who are less familiar with it. Students or younger scientists will hopefully be stimulated and attracted by the fascination of complement biology. Again, it was clear from the beginning that the field has experienced an explosive expansion in various directions and continues to accumulate data too large to be dealt with by a single author in a critical and coherent manner. The editors are grateful that the invited authors, all of them leading scientists in their field, helped again to make The Complement System a true mirror of the state of the art. Some parallels in the various chapters were accepted, as was a particular emphasis on newer developments in some chapters.
The Complement System
Author: Janos Szebeni
language: en
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Release Date: 2007-05-08
As a phylogenetically old system complement is now regarded as a part of innate immunity. But it is much more than that. It bridges innate and adapted immunity, participates not only in host defense but also in many essential physiological processes, old and new diseases and adverse conditions. Indeed, complement became a term that almost defies categorization. What was for a long time a subject for a limited number of specialists has now moved into the mainstream of experimental and clinical immunology. In 1973 I visited the Basel Institute of Immunology and met its director, the eminent scientist and Nobel laureate Nils Jerne. When I entered his office he greeted me with the following words: “Complement, does that really exist?” I was never certain whether he wanted only to tease me or whether he sincerely believed that the complement system was an unimportant biological curiosity, a misstep of evolution. But, of course, missteps do not survive the evolutionary process. Little did I foresee the dramatic developments of recent years when Hans J. Müller-Eberhard and I started to unravel the specifics of the action of the cobra venom factor on the complement system in 1968 and defined a new pathway to its activation. An elucidation of the role of the system in diseases and its control for therapeutic reasons is now getting closer to actual realization in the clinic although many problems, in particular those of highly specificinhibition free of side effects, have still to be resolved.