Regulatory Mechanisms Controlling Inflammation and Synthesis of Acute Phase Proteins

Abstract

Inflammation is usually defined as a complex response of the animal organism to tissue injury or to invasion of foreign pathogens. Although inflammation often starts as a local reaction it can easily develop into a generalized systemic response involving the whole organism. Participation of inflammatory reactions in the pathogenesis of many diseases is today a generally accepted medical paradigm. These ideas have been thoroughly discussed in numerous excellent monographs and specialized recent publications (Nathan, 2002; Dinarello, 2008, 2010; Medzhitov, 2010) whereas our presentation is just a brief account focused on regulatory mechanisms involved in the initiation, development and termination of the “generalized inflammatory response” (GIR) and its relations to the induced synthesis of certain plasma and tissue proteins