Editorial

We begin another year of outstanding reviews in Immunology. We have sought to collect reviews mainly on the clinical aspects of immunology, but we have also included a focus on interdisciplinary aspects of immunology that are not adequately covered by mainstream views of immunology. In this respect, we have been extraordinarily successful in the past few years, with articles discussing the interface between the immune system and the nervous system, the intriguing effects of pharmacological agents not specifically directed toward the immune system, and other interesting and surprising connections. In this first issue of the year, we continue this approach. For example, in the article by Nakamura and Yanagawa, the role of beta-adrenergic signaling on inflammation is explained, along with a discussion on some interesting therapeutic applications. Intriguing connections between conventional immune responses and environmental stimuli are presented in two articles. Hoffman and Steiner discuss the diagnostic antibodies against nucleic acid-protein complexes and how different inflammatory stimuli may influence the development of such specific patterns of autoantibodies. Al-Riyami and Harnett discuss the unusual influences of helminth infections on inflammatory disease, with possible beneficial applications. As the complexity of the immune system is being revealed, some very surprising connections have been found. Thus, many molecules and signals that had previously been relegated to non-immune aspects of biology are increasingly being found to have influences on immunity, and are therefore being lumped in with what has been called “innate” immunity. This is an increasingly unacceptable situation, as it oversimplifies the different ways in which signaling mechanisms can and must interact with the conventional “adaptive” immune response. Two articles illustrate this complexity well, and move us to a clearer understanding of how our overall views of immunity might be organized: Banh and Brossay present a discussion on the interactions between cadherins, thought mainly to be responsible for cellular adhesion, and immune receptors. Eagle, Jafferji and Barrow review stress responses in cells and their induction of ligands for Natural Killer cells.