Clarification of the Molecular Mechanisms That Negatively Regulate Inflammatory Responses

Abstract

Inflammation is an important host defence mechanism to fight against invading microbial pathogens. However, an excess of these responses can damage normal tissues and may cause autoimmune or allergic diseases. To prevent the onset of these diseases, inflammatory responses should be tightly regulated by the negative regulatory system. Dysfunction of this negative regulatory system is suggested to be the cause of these diseases, but little is known about the details. Our research goal is to identify key regulators of inflammation-related signal transduction pathways, and to clarify the molecular mechanisms for regulating inflammatory responses. We recently found that LIM domain-containing proteins constitute a new family of negative regulators of inflammatory responses. In this review, we summarise a series of our studies about the role of PDLIM2 (PDZ and LIM-domain protein-2) and related LIM proteins in the negative regulation of inflammatory responses. These studies should contribute to the development of new therapeutic tools to control the exaggerated inflammation seen in certain human diseases.