Lymphocyte Homing to the Skin: Immunology, Immunopathology, and Therapeutic Perspectives PDF

Preface

As a physico-chemical barrier, skin separates the inside and outside world of an organism. This goes along with discrimination between self and nonself making the skin the most peripheral immune organ, maintaining multiple interactions with other parts of the immune system elsewhere in the body. The skin immune system consists of a multitude of cells and soluble factors, and cellular and molecular interactions within this system are no less complex than those in other immunological compartments. The coordinated action of various resident dermal and epidermal cell populations as well as immigrating leukocytes enables the skin immune system to respond rapidly and effectively to a large variety of immunogenic insults.

T lymphocytes mediate many important effector functions in cutaneous immune responses. Key players in the defense against intracellular pathogens, such as viruses, they mediate rejection of foreign tissues and contribute prominently to immune surveillance against malignant tumors. In addition to mechanisms of the innate immunity, their acquired or adaptive immunity is essential for specific responses to various immunogenic insults to the skin. The recruitment of memory T-cells that have clonally expanded in response to antigens presented to their T-cell antigen receptor complexes is required for successful immune surveillance.

Our understanding of the molecular mechanisms that underlie the complex, multistep cascade that results in tissue-specific localization of circulating T lymphocytes has steadily improved. It has become apparent that tissue-selective trafficking of T lymphocytes is a crucial process in the pathogenesis of inflammatory, namely autoimmune diseases. This area of research has already greatly aided the identification of crucial molecules that may serve as specific therapeutic target structures for the development of innovative anti-inflammatory drugs.

This is a good time to produce a book on lymphocyte homing to the skin. Many unsolved questions remain to be answered, keeping many groups with an interest in basic research busy. On the other hand, sufficient insight has already been generated to lure applied sciences into it, since the relevance for medicine and biotechnology has become more and more obvious. Moreover, the skin turns out to be a great object to study: accessible, but also of sufficient complexity to mirror most processes relevant for tissue-selective T-cell trafficking. And, last but not least, there are numerous unmet medical needs regarding the treatment of skin diseases, at least some of them may be met down the road, based on studying lymphocyte homing to the skin.