Cytokine Storms

I read a lot of news articles, especially if they have to do with matters of health, new developments, etc. Sometimes this seems like a waste of time, but many times it seems to spark an interest in me to dig a little deeper. Granted, that doesn't always (or even often) happen, but it does make me think.

This article got me thinking about how little we know about how little we actually know about the function of the immune system. The idea of cytokine storms is an intriguing one to me for many reasons. I have many friends with PIDDs who have gradually started experiencing autoimmune co-morbid illness. What if... and here's a fundamental question no one knows the answer to... but what if the whole autoimmune stuff was something akin to a cytokine storm? Our bodies don't make antibodies and the rest of our immune system works overtime and produces this typhoon of overproduced crap that damages our bodies.

The things that stand out to me that gave me pause were the stuff about what happens in a cytokine storm and how the flu virus is contained in the lungs, but we experience other symptoms due to cytokine response. What if that same cytokine response is the reason people with CVID still experience lung damage while on proper IG replacement? Or what if it is the reason we have joint pain (even outside autoimmune diagnosis) Or what if.... there are many things I am thinking it makes sense for. All the repeated infections just make our bodies go completely haywire. It makes sense to me, anyway.

Cytokines

Once a month, I receive an email with the latest and greatest from the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. I like to keep up on developments and the articles usually have some useful information or send me down a useful path of research to increase my understanding of PIDDs, CIVD, and the immune system in general.

This month's journal included some research published about the cytokine now known as IL-25 (formerly IL-17E). Basically, it was found that the body produced this particular cytokine as a reaction to allergens, so it plays a role in allergic inflammation. Interesting. I hadn't previously read a great deal about cytokines, so down the rabbit hole I went.

I read several abstracts and settled on a few articles I thought were interesting, mainly focusing my work on things related to IL-25. I quickly saw that this was a broader and more interesting topic, so I expanded my search. I found this article and have been engrossed in the knowledge of each cytokine. This has expanded somewhat since 2009 when the article was published, but I'm finding it to be an interesting read.

Here are the basics of what I've learned about cytokines so far:
-Cytokines seem to be the immunological equivalent of hormones in the endocrine system.
-Researchers don't actually know much that is conclusive about these molecules.
-There are several that are responsible for B cell maturation and plasma cell differentiation.
-There are several cytokines that underlie allergic reactions and conditions - it's not just IgE, which I'd previously been lead to believe and is, seemingly, a pretty common misconception among physicians.
-Cytokines seem to be responsible at some base level for every function in the immune system.

There are several cytokines I want to talk about individually, but this is a good place to start. I will be focusing on the cytokines relevant to immunoglobulin production and autoimmune disease functions.