Human Cytokinome: a new challenge for systems biology

Abstract

Cytokines play an important role in the evolution of inflammatory processes. Therefore, they are also key components of the cancer evolution, a disease recognized to depend on chronic inflammation. On the whole, we define cytokinome as the totality of these proteins and their interactions in and around biological cells. Understanding the complex interaction network of cytokines in patients affected from cancers should be very useful both to follow the cancer evolution from its early steps and to define innovative therapeutic strategies by using systems biology approaches.