Interactive Functional Specificity of the Stress and Immune Responses: The Ying, the Yang, and the Defense against 2 Major Classes of Bacteria

Received 2 May 2005; accepted 11 May 2005; electronically published 15 July 2005. Potential conflicts of interest: none reported. Reprints or correspondence: Dr. George P. Chrousos, First Department of Pediatrics, Athens University Medical School, Children’s Hospital Aghia Sophia, 115 27 Athens, Greece (chrousge@med.uoa.gr). The Journal of Infectious Diseases 2005;192:551–5 This article is in the public domain, and no copyright is claimed. 0022-1899/2005/19204-0001 The stress and immune systems play crucial roles in maintaining homeostasis [1, 2]. The former is relatively nonspecific, in the sense that it is activated by any threat to general homeostasis—including immune threats, when that threat exceeds a certain threshold—whereas the latter is relatively specific, in the sense that it is primarily activated when injurious agents come into contact with the tissues of the organism. During the past few decades, it has become apparent that the stress and immune systems extensively interact with each other, influencing each other’s activity, with the purpose of the successful defense against and adaptation of the organism to injurious agents. The study by Straub et al. [3] in this issue of the Journal of Infectious Diseases examines and eloquently describes the interaction of the stress and immune systems with regard to the powerful influence of the stress system on the quality of the defense of the organism against gram-negative versus gram-positive bacteria. This study highlights several key concepts that pertain to the interaction of these 2 systems that are important to review.