Department of Microbiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.
Microbiol Mol Biol Rev. 2012 Mar;76(1):16-32. doi: 10.1128/MMBR.05015-11.
The cytokine storm has captured the attention of the public and the scientific community alike, and while the general notion of an excessive or uncontrolled release of proinflammatory cytokines is well known, the concept of a cytokine storm and the biological consequences of cytokine overproduction are not clearly defined. Cytokine storms are associated with a wide variety of infectious and noninfectious diseases. The term was popularized largely in the context of avian H5N1 influenza virus infection, bringing the term into popular media. In this review, we focus on the cytokine storm in the context of virus infection, and we highlight how high-throughput genomic methods are revealing the importance of the kinetics of cytokine gene expression and the remarkable degree of redundancy and overlap in cytokine signaling. We also address evidence for and against the role of the cytokine storm in the pathology of clinical and infectious disease and discuss why it has been so difficult to use knowledge of the cytokine storm and immunomodulatory therapies to improve the clinical outcomes for patients with severe acute infections.
细胞因子风暴引起了公众和科学界的关注，尽管人们普遍了解过度或失控的促炎细胞因子释放的概念，但细胞因子风暴的概念和细胞因子过度产生的生物学后果并没有得到明确界定。细胞因子风暴与各种感染性和非感染性疾病有关。这个术语在很大程度上是在禽流感 H5N1 病毒感染的背景下流行起来的，使这个术语进入了大众媒体。在这篇综述中，我们专注于病毒感染背景下的细胞因子风暴，并强调高通量基因组方法如何揭示细胞因子基因表达动力学的重要性，以及细胞因子信号传递中惊人的冗余和重叠程度。我们还讨论了细胞因子风暴在临床和传染病病理学中的作用的证据，并探讨了为什么利用细胞因子风暴和免疫调节疗法的知识来改善严重急性感染患者的临床结果如此困难。
