Molecular Aspects of Inflammation

Understanding the molecular basis of complex biological processes has been amajor goal of biological chemistry from early on. Inflammation is such one entitiy, and recent years have seen exciting progress in the understanding of molecuar interactions; there has been a long way from dolor, rubor, calor and tumor as a fundamental description of the phenomenon tocurrent knowlegde on e.g. the control of the respiratory burst of the granulocyte, the atomic details of protease regulation, or the interaction of cytokines. The book is organized in the order of increasing complexity, starting out with the key phenomena of the inflammatory response and its modulation by cytokines to intravascular events and shock and sepsis; thus, the current attemptsto apply basic knowledge on mediators of inflam- mation to the clinical situation were also considered.