Annotated Bibliography
“Inflammation: Immune Protection or Disease Process?”
Mary Weis, Department of Biology
Study Grant: Summer III 2008
A presentation of the study grant findings was given during the faculty professional development week at CPC to those interested individuals who wanted to learn more about the immune system’s involvement in disease processes and how to minimize the effects of a potentially destructive force of chemicals whose primary role should be targeted at body defenses.
In summary, most of my research was done via journal articles to update my current understanding of the immune cytokines, particularly interleukins, and their role in the inflammatory process and chronic diseases. A formal bibliography follows the annotated discussion.
For the general public, I would direct them to the original Time Magazine article on The Secret Killer: Inflammation and Chronic Disease as well as several books that address the topic: The Inflammation Syndrome by Jack Chellam; Can Stress Heal? By Dr. Kenneth Cooper; and the Anti-Inflammation Zone by Dr. Barry Sears. All of these are written with the general public in mind and explain why inflammation is the underlying cause in so many chronic and debilitating diseases. The Time article summarizes the research being done at the time and chronicles the history of our understanding about chronic diseases. Jack Chellam’s book puts into perspective the environmental influences that trigger long term immune responses which put the body at risk for heart disease, cancer, arthritis, and many more conditions. The Anti-Inflammation Zone is a dietary way of decreasing inflammation and promoting healing. Other summary reference articles can be easily found by typing in key words (stress, inflammation, disease) such as Dr. Richard Weinstein’s website article that addresses the link between stress and illness.
For the more scientific reader, I would recommend Immunobiology by Janeway and Cellular and Molecular Immunity by Abbas as they describe the intricate and complicated signaling pathways involved in immune communication and the etiology and pathogenesis of diseases due to the chronic inflammatory response. Many articles from the National Institutes of Health published by the National Library of Medicine on Pub Med are also a good resource on specific topics such as inflammatory cytokines and the inflammatory response syndrome as well as journal articles published in the Journal of Neuroinflammation that reflect research for Alzheimer’s Disease and Hepatic Ischemia-Reperfusion injury. The anticancer website has a very detailed discussion on the various immune cytokines, their function, and problems if left uncontrolled.
Much of my initial research on the cytokines focused on creating a table of functions for the over 30 interleukins for my A&P II students so that they can appreciate the numerous chemicals and their complexity of function (if known) to show the need for a well regulated communication mechanism between the immune, endocrine, and nervous systems. I hand these out to students when we start the immune system topic of Cell Mediated Immunity and have them learn the more important ones such as IL-1, IL-2, IL-6, IL-8, and IL-10. Several websites were used and of no real interest in having the readers review other than a possible desire to compare data and summarize the effects of these and other chemicals.
Both groups would be interested in reading about the dietary changes that are needed in order to combat this problem and promote life long health. These articles include information on vitamins and minerals, probiotics, herbs, fish oils, dental hygiene practices, and overall food choices to choose the super foods such as fish, pumpkin, sunflower seeds, asparagus, berries, sweet potatoes, apples, lentils, broccoli, and onions to name a few. Drug research on inflammation also led to the development of medicines to help decrease the pain and debilitating effects of inflammation, especially those that deal with COX-2 inhibition. Newer drugs are being developed that focus on leukotrienes, another inflammatory mediator created during the inflammatory response.
After researching the immune cytokines and their roles in inflammation, I have come to understand the importance of requesting additional medical screening tests for homocysteine, C reactive protein, IL-6, and C3 levels in addition to the lipid panel (HDL/LDL cholesterol and triglycerides) that are normally run during annual exams. A list of recommended tests was handed out after the presentation and I also give this to students in the health sciences so that these tests can be done for their patients and appropriate therapy be initiated or used as prognostic indicators of treatment response.
Reflecting on the knowledge gained, there is still much to be learned. My intention is to focus on the function of complement protein C3 and tumor suppressor gene p53. Current research on the C3 protein and p53 has lead to discoveries about genetic mutations that are triggered in the cell. Both of these chemicals are important signals, not only to promote or stop inflammation, but they have been linked to all types of cancer, one of my research interests.
Bibliography
Gorman, Christine, and Park, Alice. “The Secret Killer.” Time Magazine. 23 February, 2004.
Sears, Barry. The Anti-Inflammation Zone. New York: HarperCollins, 2005.
Challem, Jack. The Inflammation Syndrome. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2003.
Cooper, Kenneth. Can Stress Heal? Nashville. Thomas Nelson, 1997.
Weinstein, Robert. “How stress made you sick.”
Huether, Sue and McCance, Kathryn. Understanding Pathophysiology, 4th edition: St. Louis: Mosby/Elsevier, 2008.
Janeway, Charles. Immunobiology, 5th edition. New York: Garland Science, 2007.
Abbas, Abul. Cellular and Molecular Immunology, 6th edition. Philadelphia: Saunders/Elsevier, 2007.
Frazier, Margaret. Essentials of Human Disease and Condition. Philadelphia: Saunders/Elsevier, 2009.
Finley, Lauren. “C3: Complement Opsinogen and Inflammatory Mediator.” Davidson College. Jan 2006.
“The role of C-Reactive Protein in the Evaluation and Management of Infants with Suspected Sepsis.” Advanced Neonatal Care 2003, 3(1): 3-13.
“Chemical Mediators of Acute Inflammation.”
“Oxidative Stress.”
“The interaction between the immune system and tumors.”
“Cox-2 inhibitors – overview of Cox-2 inhibitor drugs.” http//:
“Omega-3 Fatty Acids.”
Komarova, Eleana. “p53 is a suppressor of inflammatory response in mice.” FASEB Journal. 5 April 2005.
Toumi, H and Best, T.M. “The inflammatory response: friend or enemy for muscle injury?” Br J Sports Med 2003; 37:284-287. BMJ Publishing.
Fleming, Jennifer and Norenberg, Michael. “The cellular inflammatory response in human spinal cords after injury.” Brain 2006, 129(12):3249-3269.
Rodriguez-Yanez, M and Castellanos, M. “New-onset hypertension and inflammatory reponse/poor outcomes in acute ischemic stroke.” Neurology 2006; 67:1973-1978.
Crockett, Elahe and Spielman, William. “Sex differences in inflammatory cytokine production in hepatic ischemia-reprofusion.” Journal of Inflammation 2006, 3:16.
Seymour, R.M. and Henderson, B. “Pro-inflammatory—anti-inflammaotyr cytokine dynamics mediated by cytokine receptor dynamics in monocytes.” Mathematical Medicine and Biology 2001 18(2):159-192.
Patel, Nikunj and Paris, Daniel. “Inflammatory cytokine levels correlate with amyloid load in transgenic mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease.” Journal of Neuroinflammation 2005, 2:9.
Rangel-Fraousto, MS. “The Natural History of the systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS).” JAMA: 11 Jan 1995. NCBI: PubMed.
“Eicosanoids and inflammatory response.” PNAS: 18 Jul 2006.
Malo, Madhu and Biswas, Shaluk. “The Pro-Inflammatory Cytokines: Il-1 and TNF-a.” DNA and Cell Biology, Dec 2006, Vol.5, No.12: 684-695.
Rittner, H.L. and Machelska, H. “Leukocytes in the regulation of pain and analgesia.” Journal of Leukocyte Biology 2005:78: 1215-1222.
Kassiotis, George and Kollias, George. “TNF and receptors in organ-specific autoimmune disease.” Journal of Clinical Investigations. 2001 Juen 15; 107(12): 1507-1508.
Dandreas, T and Bloomberg, A. “Differential inhibition of inflammatory cytokine release from cultured alveolar macrophages form smokers and non-smokers by NO2.” Human Experimental Toxicology: 16 Oct 1007. NCBI: PubMed.
Wang, Su He and Bretz, James D. “A unique combination of inflammatory cytokines enhances apoptosis of thyroid follicular cells and transforms nondestructive to destructive thyroiditis in experimental autoimmune thyroiditis.” The Journal of Immunology, 2002, 168: 2470-2474.
Koenig, Wolfgang. “Heart disease and the inflammatory response.” BMJ 2000 July 22; 321 (7255): 187-188.