Brief Introduction of the Relationship Between GM-CSF Cytokines And Immune diseases

Granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF) cytokine is an active immune effector factor with a wide range of immune activities in the body. As an immune adjuvant, it can not only promote the maturation of APCs (such as DC and macrophages) and improve its antigen presentation ability, but also play a role in T cell-mediated inflammatory diseases, autoimmune diseases and tumors. Key role. Cytokine testing can study the role of cytokine in the physiological system and understand the effect of cytokine products for clinical treatment.

Under normal physiological conditions, the expression level of GM-CSF in the body is low. In the lung mucosa, GM-CSF is mainly produced by epithelial cells. GM-CSF plays an important role in regulating the microbial defense of alveolar macrophages and removing surfactants. In humans, 90% of alveolar proteinosis PAP is an autoimmune disease caused by high levels of GM-CSF and autoantibodies.

GM-CSF is a pro-inflammatory cytokine, which can rise rapidly during infection or inflammation. At the site of inflammation, GM-CSF has a pro-inflammatory effect by recruiting myeloid cells and enhancing their survival and activation. GM-CSF can play a key role in the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis through the activation, differentiation and survival of macrophages, dendritic cells and neutrophils. Studies have found that targeting granulocyte macrophages A monoclonal antibody against colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF) is effective and well tolerated in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Since GM-CSF cytokines are widely involved in the pathogenesis of allergic and inflammatory diseases, understanding the functions and mechanisms of these cytokines and their receptors through cytokine detection and other means is important for understanding the pathophysiological process of related clinical diseases The guiding significance.

Cytokine detection can determine the body’s immune function, which is of great significance for disease diagnosis, disease course observation, curative effect judgment and treatment monitoring. The results of cytokine testing can also be used as indicators for vaccine immunological testing. Medicilon Biopharmaceuticals can provide cytokine testing services for the majority of medical R&D personnel. Its biological analysis department has complete infrastructure and advanced equipment. It has high-end technology platforms such as flow CBA, MSD, and Luminex systems that can perform various singleplex or multiplex. Multiple forms of cytokine detection.

GM-CSF can polarize macrophages into a pro-inflammatory M1 phenotype and can induce inflammation including other pro-inflammatory factors such as TNF, IL-1, IL-6, IL-12 and IL-23 chain reaction. There is evidence that GM-CSF plays a crucial role in the pathogenesis and progression of many autoimmune diseases.

At present, many studies have made it clear that cytokine storm is closely related to the severity of COVID-19 patients. In February 2020, the team of Professor Wei Haiming from the Department of Life Sciences and Medicine of the University of Science and Technology of China and the team of Chief Physician Xu Xiaoling, Deputy Dean of the First Affiliated Hospital of the Chinese University of Science and Technology, published their major research results on the preprint website bioRxiv. The research team believes that IL-6 and GM-CSF are the two key inflammatory factors that trigger the inflammatory storm in COVID-19 patients.

In this study, the research team conducted a comprehensive analysis of 30 immunological indicators in the blood of 33 COVID-19 patients and discovered the key mechanism of cytokine storm caused by severe pneumonia caused by new coronavirus infection. Studies have revealed that SARS-CoV-2 will quickly activate pathogenic T cells to produce granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF) and IL-6. GM-CSF will further activate CD14+CD16+ inflammatory monocytes to produce a larger amount of IL-6 and other inflammatory factors, thereby forming a cytokine storm, leading to severe immune damage to the lungs and other organs.

The research team predicts that drugs that can block IL-6 and GM-CSF have the potential to block the cytokine storm in COVID-19 patients.

In addition, GM-CSF has now become a recognized nucleic acid vaccine adjuvant, and is widely used in tumor, virus and parasite nucleic acid vaccine research, and has a good immune response enhancement effect. As a multipotent hematopoietic growth factor, GM-CSF can promote the proliferation and differentiation of hematopoietic stem cells into granulocytes and macrophages, etc., and can induce humoral and cellular immunity, and enhance the lethality of effector cells. There are also reports that viruses such as human tumor necrosis factor, granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor, interleukin 7, interleukin 12, and interferon β can be constructed into viruses with the ability to produce special cytokines, and can even be strengthened. The host’s response to virus infection.