Abstract
Because of the potent effector mechanisms of the immune system, the potential for self-destructive immune responses is especially high and many negative regulatory modalities exist to prevent excessive tissue damage. This Commentary places such regulatory mechanisms in the larger context of system organization on many scales. The sometimes counterintuitive nature of feedback control is discussed and a case is made for greater attention to quantitative spatiotemporal aspects of regulation, rather than limiting the discussion to the qualitative descriptions of pathways that dominate at present.
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Acknowledgements
I thank the colleagues with whom I have discussed, over many years, aspects of the ideas presented in this Commentary, and W. Kastenmuller for reading of this manuscript and suggestions for improvements. Supported by the Intramural Research Program of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the US National Institutes of Health.
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Germain, R. Maintaining system homeostasis: the third law of Newtonian immunology. Nat Immunol 13, 902–906 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/ni.2404
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ni.2404
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