Macrophages in Health and Non-infectious Disease

Dear Colleagues,

Having first been described more than 100 years ago, macrophages are still the focus of biomedical research. For about 50 decades, they were considered solely as part of the defense against pathogens intruding an organism; however, unravelling the mechanisms of inflammatory reaction regulation made it clear that macrophages not only possess effector function but also act as important regulators of inflammation. A new boost was given to macrophage research in the last decade of the 20th century with the essential study made in the lab of Siamon Gordon, which demonstrated alternative macrophage activation. This was a literal milestone in understanding macrophage function. Since that publication, a variety of macrophage markers and functional peculiarities have been described, and it has become clear that in a healthy organism, macrophages are the ones that actively contribute to homeostasis and regulate processes of tolerance. Apart from infectious diseases, it has been demonstrated that macrophages are actively involved in the pathogenesis of socially important non-infectious diseases, such as atherosclerosis, cancer, and diabetes. These findings have expectedly led to identification of macrophages as potential and highly attractive therapeutic targets. In this Special Issue, we want to collect the most recent publications on the mechanisms that macrophages use to regulate homeostasis and their involvement in pathogenesis of non-infectious diseases. We also welcome research describing novel macrophage markers that reflect their functional state or are involved in macrophage tolerance and training.

Dr. Alexei Gratchev
Guest Editor

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