Journal of molecular medicine : official organ of the "Gesellschaft Deutscher Naturforscher und Ärzte"
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Sepsis is a significant cause of death worldwide. Although the prevailing theory of the sepsis syndrome has been that of a condition of uncontrolled inflammation in response to infection, sepsis is increasingly being recognized as an immunosuppressive state. ⋯ In this review, we present an overview of the clinical and experimental evidence for sepsis-induced immunosuppression and outline the mechanisms that underlie this phenotype. With an improved understanding of how host immune states may be altered during sepsis, better immunomodulatory therapies may be developed to address the immune derangements observed in patients with sepsis.
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C-C chemokine receptors have been suggested to play an important role in sarcoidosis pathogenesis. Previous investigation of the C-C chemokine receptor 5 (CCR5) gene revealed the association of the HHC haplotype with "persistent lung involvement" in two European sarcoidosis populations. Based on this finding, we investigated a possible association of the HHC haplotype and its marker alleles in an extended German sarcoidosis sample that comprised 995 German sarcoidosis families including individuals with the chronic and acute form of the disease, further refined to patients with and without Löfgren's syndrome. ⋯ Strikingly, the association is restricted to females. This finding is consistent with recently described sex-specific manifestations of Löfgren's syndrome and with previous functional studies suggesting an estrogen-dependent CCR5 expression. The female-specific association of SNPs in the putative CCR5 promoter region with Löfgren's syndrome raises the possibility that the dysregulated, sex-specific modification of CCR5 expression could contribute to the increased risk of women to develop the disease.