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IL-6 and Inflammatory Diseases

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Cytokine Frontiers

Abstract

Interleukin-6 (IL-6) is a multifunctional cytokine that plays key roles not only in the immune system but also in a variety of biological processes. It is a primary regulator of both acute and chronic inflammations. Moreover, it has proven an excellent target for clinical treatment, as the anti-IL-6 receptor antibody has been successfully used against autoimmune disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis, juvenile idiopathic arthritis, and Castleman’s disease. In fact, it could be argued that IL-6 is the best example of basic cytokine research extending into clinical application. Here, we summarize IL-6 and its biological functions, with particular emphasis on inflammation and chronic inflammatory diseases, and a recently discovered inflammation control mechanism, the inflammation amplifier (formerly known as the IL-6 amplifier). We also describe a recent finding that indicates neural stimulations can modulate the activation of the inflammation amplifier at local blood vessels, creating a gate for the influx of immune cells into the central nervous system, which suggests the entry of immune cells into target organs can be artificially manipulated by local neural stimulation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Developmental Immunology, JST-CREST, Graduate School of Frontier Biosciences, Graduate School of Medicine, and WPI Immunology Frontier Research Center, Suita Osaka University, 2-2 Yamada-oka, Osaka, 565-0871, Japan

    Daisuke Kamimura, Yasunobu Arima, Hideki Ogura & Masaaki Murakami

  2. JST-CREST, Osaka University, 2-2 Yamada-oka, Suita Osaka, 565-0871, Osaka, Japan

    Toshio Hirano

Authors
  1. Daisuke Kamimura
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  2. Yasunobu Arima
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  3. Toshio Hirano
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  4. Hideki Ogura
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  5. Masaaki Murakami
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Correspondence to Masaaki Murakami .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Immunoregulation Institute of Medical Science, Tokyo Medical University, Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

    Takayuki Yoshimoto

  2. Institute for Advanced Medical Sciences, Hyogo College of Medicine, Nishinomiya, Hyogo, Japan

    Tomohiro Yoshimoto

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Kamimura, D., Arima, Y., Hirano, T., Ogura, H., Murakami, M. (2014). IL-6 and Inflammatory Diseases. In: Yoshimoto, T., Yoshimoto, T. (eds) Cytokine Frontiers. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-54442-5_2

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