Editorial: Pharmacological Approaches Targeting Neutrophilic Inflammation

Frontiers in Pharmacology (Швейцария). 2021. Vol. 12. Article 763140.

Chernyak B., Sokolov A., Hwang T., Zinovkin R., Sud'ina G.

Neutrophils are actively involved in the protection of our body against pathogen infection, but the consequences of their activation contribute significantly to pathogenesis of various diseases. This is why neutrophil-mediated responses should be finely tuned, and therapeutic interventions should balance between targeting neutrophil functions and uncontrolled neutrophil activation. Several decades ago, Elmer Becker wrote a great article: “The short and happy life of neutrophil activation,” where he described the importance of neutrophil functions to human physiology (Becker 1990). The novel coronavirus pandemic COVID-19 again demonstrated a critical role of neutrophils. An increased neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (Liu et al., 2020) and the release of neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) (Zuo et al., 2020) predicted severe illness at SARS-CoV-2 infection. Excessive NETs formation can be involved in the development of the «cytokine storm» and immunothrombosis, which are the main cause of severe complications associated with COVID-19. Therefore, neutrophil can be a pathogenic marker and drug target of COVID-19 (for review see Chiang et al. (2020)). A detailed study of these cells is extremely important for medicine and pharmacology, and the aim of this topic is to gather new trends in pharmacological approaches targeting neutrophilic inflammation.

Keywords: inflammation, neutrophils, нейтрофилы, воспаление