title: Drug targets in the cytokine universe for autoimmune disease.
abstract: In autoimmune disease, a network of diverse cytokines is produced in association with disease susceptibility to constitute the 'cytokine milieu' that drives chronic inflammation. It remains elusive how cytokines interact in such a complex network to sustain inflammation in autoimmune disease. This has presented huge challenges for successful drug discovery because it has been difficult to predict how individual cytokine-targeted therapy would work. Here, we combine the principles of Chinese Taoism philosophy and modern bioinformatics tools to dissect multiple layers of arbitrary cytokine interactions into discernible interfaces and connectivity maps to predict movements in the cytokine network. The key principles presented here have important implications in our understanding of cytokine interactions and development of effective cytokine-targeted therapies for autoimmune disorders.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroimmunology, GlaxoSmithKline Research and Development Center, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: Xuebin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Fang
authors.forename: Taylor B
authors.initials: TB
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.forename: Hongkang
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Mei
authors.forename: Jingwu Z
authors.initials: JZ
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D000911:Antibodies, Monoclonal / Q000627:therapeutic use; D044466:Asian People; D001327:Autoimmune Diseases / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000276:immunology / Q000503:physiopathology; D019295:Computational Biology / Q000379:methods*; D016207:Cytokines / Q000037:antagonists & inhibitors* / Q000276:immunology / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D007249:Inflammation / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000276:immunology / Q000503:physiopathology; D012072:Religious Philosophies
chemical_list: D000911:Antibodies, Monoclonal; D016207:Cytokines