The regulation of inflammation by galectin-3.
Galectin-3 is a beta-galactoside-binding animal lectin of approximately 30 kDa and is evolutionarily highly conserved. Galectin-3 is promiscuous, its localization within the tissue micro-environment may be extracellular, cytoplasmic, or nuclear, and it has a concentration-dependent ability to be monomeric or form oligomers. These properties impart great flexibility on galectin-3 as a specific regulator of many biological systems including inflammation. For example, in acute tissue damage galectin-3 is a key component in the host defense against microbes such as Streptococcus pneumoniae. However, if tissue injury becomes repetitive galectin-3 also appears to be intimately involved in the transition to chronic inflammation, facilitating the walling off of tissue injury with fibrogenesis and organ scarring. Therefore galectin-3 can be viewed as a regulatory molecule acting at various stages along the continuum from acute inflammation to chronic inflammation and tissue fibrogenesis. In this review, we examine the role of galectin-3 in inflammation, and discuss the manipulation of galectin-3 expression as a potentially novel therapeutic strategy in the treatment of a broad range of inflammatory diseases.
Henderson
Neil C
NC
Centre for Inflammation Research, The Queen's Medical Research Institute, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.
Sethi
Tariq
T
D000818:Animals; D001249:Asthma / Q000276:immunology* / Q000378:metabolism; D001419:Bacteria / Q000276:immunology; D005347:Fibroblasts / Q000276:immunology* / Q000378:metabolism; D005355:Fibrosis / Q000276:immunology* / Q000378:metabolism; D005658:Fungi / Q000276:immunology; D037502:Galectin 3 / Q000276:immunology / Q000378:metabolism*; D006801:Humans; D007113:Immunity, Innate; D007249:Inflammation / Q000276:immunology* / Q000378:metabolism / Q000382:microbiology; D008264:Macrophages / Q000276:immunology* / Q000378:metabolism
D037502:Galectin 3