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Definition

What is an inflammatory response? Inflammation is a general term for the local accumulation of fluid, plasma proteins and white blood cells that is initiated by physical injury, infection or a local immune response. More extensive tissue damage or infection may result in additional systemic reactions including fever and induction of certain genes mounting the acute phase response. These largely uniform responses of higher multicellular organisms to various injuries/infections are also known as the inflammatory response. The cells that invade tissues undergoing inflammatory responses are often called inflammatory cells or inflammatory infiltrates.

Acute inflammation is the term used to describe early and often transient episodes, while chronic inflammation occurs if the infection persists or during atherosclerosis or autoimmune responses. Many different forms of inflammation are seen in different diseases.

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Innate Immunity and Inflammation

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Correspondence to Ahmed Sheriff .

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© 2006 Springer-Verlag

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Sheriff, A., Herrmann, M., Voll, R.E., Gaipl, U.S., Kalden, J.R. (2006). Inflammatory Response. In: Encyclopedic Reference of Genomics and Proteomics in Molecular Medicine. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg . https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-29623-9_4580

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