Molecular and Cellular Pathways Involved in the Anti-inflammatory Activity of IgG

Abstract

Despite recent advances in defining and understanding the pathways involved in the anti-inflammatory activity of IgG, much has still to be learned to get a clear picture of how IgG molecules can mediate both pro- and anti-inflammatory effector functions. Complicating the situation, suitable invivo model systems for all the different diseases where IVIg was suggested to be beneficial for the patient are lacking in many instances. Here, well-defined clinical studies are critical to ultimately prove the beneficial effects for the respective autoimmune disease. In other instances, human studies have already proven that the IgG constant fragment can have an anti-inflammatory activity, and mouse studies have been used to delineate the molecular and cellular pathways of IVIg activity, elucidating an unexpected role of IgG glycosylation-specific Fc-receptors in this immunomodulatory pathway. As this is a very active field of research, this chapter should be viewed as a first insight into this exciting and rapidly developing field, and the interested reader can get a more in-depth insight into the varying mechanisms of IVIg activity in recent more specialized review articles.