The immune system is a highly regulated and balanced system. Fundamentally, it is made up of two parts: the innate (general) immune system and the adaptive (specialized) immune system. These two systems work closely together and take on different tasks to efficiently fight germs and other foreign substances in the body.
However, when the immune system becomes imbalanced, autoimmune and autoinflammatory diseases can result.
Autoimmune diseases are predominantly characterized by uncontrolled adaptive immune reactions that are mediated by autoreactive T cells towards autoantigen-expressing tissue. While many existing approaches attempt to broadly suppress these cells, restoring adaptive immune homeostasis through the re-balance of TREG and TEFF may be a novel and differentiated approach to treating debilitating autoimmune conditions.
Autoinflammatory diseases are problems with the innate immune system’s reactions. Immune cells target the body’s own healthy tissues by mistake, signaling the body to attack them. The cGAS-STING pathway plays an important role in innate immune responses and excessive activation of the pathway plays a driving role in a multitude of inflammatory conditions.