Immunotherapeutic Targeting in Autoimmune Diseases

The induction and maintenance of immune tolerance represent major therapeutic goals in autoimmunity. Current strategies for controlling autoimmune disorders are based on the administration of immunosuppressive drugs leading to severe infections or resulting in patient relapse following drug withdrawal. More targeted approaches are therefore needed in this context. The administration of monoclonal antibodies against specific inflammatory mediators has been tested as a more refined strategy. Such monoclonal antibodies have highlighted potential in preclinical and clinical applications. Nevertheless, as they target global immune activation pathways, the impairment of regulatory immune responses has also been demonstrated. Therefore, the sustained clinical responses upon their long-term administration are still under debate. Immunosuppressive/regulatory immune cell-based therapy is a relatively recent approach with promising potential. To date, however, the implementation of autologous immunosuppressive cells in the clinic has been limited by their peculiarly low frequency in patients with inflammatory conditions. Strategies aimed at promoting their expansion and enhancing their suppressive function may also open new therapeutic options. In this special issue, authors addressed topics related to the immune targets of autoimmune processes and seek to identify novel strategies for the therapeutic intervention of cellular, molecular, and genomic instabilities in various autoimmune disorders. In their case report, A. Pozdzik et al. evaluated the circulating B cell subtypes including plasmablasts (CD3