Lead researcher
Dr. Ina Rudloff and Mr. Steven Cho
Main finding
Interleukin (IL)-37 is one of the rare anti-inflammatory cytokines and its potency at inhibiting inflammation was discovered in 2010. Despite considerable progress in elucidating the functions of IL-37 in the last few years, and although it is known that leukocytes are a major source of IL-37, knowledge on IL-37 production and secretion in specific immune cell types remained limited. We discovered that monocytes and dendritic cells secrete IL-37 upon inflammatory stimulation. Moreover, we found that whereas monocytes store IL-37 in the absence of inflammation, dendritic cells can secrete the cytokine even under baseline conditions, likely to maintain an anti-inflammatory milieu at steady-state.
Centre
The Ritchie Centre
Research group
Interventional Immunology in Neonatal Diseases and Beyond
Journal and article title
Most surprising
Not only were we able to identify the leukocyte subtypes able to produce and secrete IL-37, we also found that monocytes in particular can release IL-37 as early as three hours after inflammatory stimulation. Thus, we identified IL-37 as a novel alarmin - a molecule that rapidly gets released upon sensing of "danger signals" - that can effectively combat excessive inflammation.
Future implications
These insights may prove important to advancing the protective functions of one of the most powerful anti-inflammatory mediators so far discovered towards clinical use.
Disease/health impact
inflammatory diseases
