About the Special Issue

Multiple immune cell populations line the muco-epithelial borders of our body. Continuous exposure of these interfaces to the environment as well as to diverse microorganisms and their metabolites reflects the biological necessity for a multifaceted, integrated epithelial and immune cell-mediated regulatory system. Thus, the cellular components of this regulatory system need to discriminate invading pathogens from harmless microbiota to which they form the first line of defense or have to be tolerant to, respectively. For these complex interactions underlying the balance between pro- and anti-inflammatory processes, myeloid cell, regulatory T cell or intraepithelial lymphocyte populations are equipped with unique receptors and signaling circuits. Disruptions of these versatile processes can turn regulatory into inflammatory immune responses that underlie the pathogenesis of many complex immune-mediated disorders. Elucidation of the mechanisms through which disrupted signaling circuits and/or altered receptor expression/function turn regulatory into inflammatory immune cells can help to devise targeted and personalized tools for the diagnosis, therapy and prevention of immune-mediated disorders and/or infectious disease.

In this Special Issue, we welcome original articles, reviews, case reports, preclinical and clinical studies.

Keywords: mucosa-associated microenvironment, auto-immunity, immunotherapy, immune evasion, T regulatory cells, intra-epithelial lymphovytes, microbiota, metabolites, NGS, trascriptomics, metabolomics, myeloid cell populations, cell signaling, disease pathogenesis, colonization resostance, infectious disease

Call for Papers