Abstract
In humans, over-activation of innate immunity in response to viral or bacterial infections often causes severe illness and death. Furthermore, similar mechanisms related to innate immunity can cause pathogenesis and death in sepsis, massive trauma (including surgery and burns), ischemia/reperfusion, some toxic lesions, and viral infections including COVID-19. Based on the reviewed observations, we suggest that such severe outcomes may be manifestations of a controlled suicidal strategy protecting the entire population from the spread of pathogens and from dangerous pathologies rather than an aberrant hyperstimulation of defense responses. We argue that innate immunity may be involved in the implementation of an altruistic programmed death of an organism aimed at increasing the well-being of the whole community. We discuss possible ways to suppress this atavistic program by interfering with innate immunity and suggest that combating this program should be a major goal of future medicine.
Highlights
IntroductionPublisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations
The studies considered above show the crucial role of innate immunity in the execution of phenoptosis, using examples from prokaryotes to humans
The lethal manifestations of innate immunity discussed above may not be the result of its aberrant hyperstimulation, but manifestations of an altruistic suicide program that protects the population from the spread of pathogens or dangerous pathologies
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. DAMPs, as well as PAMPs, initiate an innate immune response, which involves the release of cytokines and other inflammatory mediators, activation of some specific defense mechanisms (for example, the production of extracellular traps), and induction of certain types of programmed cell death. Such a combination of organismic reactions is commonly called inflammation, which has been recently defined as “the innate immune response to harmful stimuli such as pathogens, injury, and tissue malfunction” [56].
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