Edited by:
Gerard Honig, PhD, Otsuka Pharmaceutical Development & Commercialization, USA
Molecular Medicine is calling for submissions to our new Collection on Targeting the host-microbiome interface in chronic inflammatory diseases.
Image Credit: Design Cells / Getty Images / iStock
Chronic inflammatory diseases are a heterogeneous group of conditions associated with progressive inflammation-driven injury and impairment of physiological functions. These include canonical immune-mediated diseases, such as ulcerative colitis, psoriasis or multiple sclerosis; however, it is increasingly clear that many other common diseases, including cardiovascular and neurodegenerative disorders, are also driven by chronic inflammation. While the advent of new therapeutics has transformed the management of inflammatory diseases in recent decades, best-in-class therapeutic interventions remain inadequate, while the incidence of such chronic diseases is rising globally in association with population-level environmental changes in diet and living conditions, driving an ever-increasing humanitarian and societal burden.
Interactions between microbiome ecosystems and the human body play crucial roles in the body’s ability to defend itself against pathogens, develop a functional immune system and maintain homeostasis. Aberrant interactions between the microbiome and the host, leading to diverse forms of chronic inflammation, have been implicated in the onset and progression of many progressive chronic diseases, including but not limited to those affecting mucosal organs such as the gut, skin and lung. The impact of host-microbiome interactions on chronic inflammation-driven diseases may contribute to the dramatic impact of the environment, as evidenced by the evolving epidemiology of these diseases. The diversity of potential host-microbiome interactions at the level of individual patients may also contribute to their heterogeneous clinical manifestations and responses to available therapy.
While fundamental understanding of host-microbiome interactions has dramatically expanded in recent decades, there remain critical gaps in progress towards therapeutic interventions targeting these processes to address unmet medical needs. Notably, while currently available drugs can constrain inflammation downstream of host-microbiome interactions in chronic inflammatory diseases, clinical-stage strategies have not yet been conclusively demonstrated to specifically intercept these processes to therapeutic effect. Directly targeting host-microbiome interactions may represent a novel, differentiated and precise approach to address limitations of available approaches and address unmet needs of patients with chronic inflammatory diseases.
For this Collection, we invite articles addressing the following topics in the context of diseases associated with chronic inflammation:
- How do aberrant host-microbiome interactions contribute to disease onset and progression?
- Does patient-level heterogeneity in host-microbiome interaction contribute to risk of treatment-resistant manifestations and poor clinical outcomes?
- What novel therapeutic strategies, including pharmacological and dietary interventions, show promise to address unmet medical needs by directly targeting host-microbiome interactions?
- Can patient-level heterogeneity in disease-driving host-microbiome interactions enable precision medicine approaches?
Children of mothers with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) are more prone to acquire type 2 diabetes and obesity as adults. Due to this link, early intervention strategies that alter the gut microbiome may b...
Toll-like receptors play a significant role in the innate immune system and are also involved in the pathophysiology of many different diseases. Over the past 35 years, there have been a growing number of publ...
Sepsis-associated encephalopathy (SAE) is one of the most common types of organ dysfunction without overt central nervous system (CNS) infection. It is associated with higher mortality, low quality of life, an...
Osteoarthritis (OA) is a common chronic disease characterized by chronic inflammation and extracellular matrix degradation. Indole-3-propionic acid (IPA) is a tryptophan metabolite secreted by intestinal flora...
Myocardial fibrosis after myocardial infarction (MI) is one of the leading causes of cardiovascular diseases. Cardiac fibroblasts (CFs) are activated and promoted by MI to undergo myofibroblast transformation ...
The gut microbiome is the totality of microorganisms, bacteria, viruses, protozoa, and fungi within the gastrointestinal tract. The gut microbiome plays key roles in various physiological and pathological proc...
Before submitting your manuscript, please ensure you have read our submission guidelines. Articles for this Collection should be submitted via Editorial Manager. During the submission process you will be asked whether you are submitting to a Collection/Thematic Series, please select "Targeting the host-microbiome interface in chronic inflammatory diseases" from the dropdown menu.
Articles will undergo the journal’s standard peer-review process and are subject to all of the journal’s standard policies. Articles will be added to the Collection as they are published.
The Guest Editors have no competing interests with the submissions which they handle through the peer review process. The peer review of any submissions for which the Guest Editors have competing interests is handled by another Editorial Board Member who has no competing interests.