Osteoimmunology in Rheumatic Diseases

Dear Colleagues, 

In recent decades, osteoimmunology has emerged as an intriguing field of clinical and experimental research. Bones and the immune system are closely related and interact extensively, with a constant interchange and a mutual influence between the bone cells and immune cells that involves an extremely wide variety of cytokines, regulating molecules, and growth and cell differentiation factors. Chronic inflammation is characterized by an impairment of bone remodeling that is driven by immune mediators, which are able to impair bone homeostasis leading to local and systemic bone changes. The relationship between chronic inflammation and bone disease is largely described in a broad variety of pathological conditions; particularly, inflammatory rheumatic diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis and spondyloarthritis, are among the most meaningful conditions in which the interplay between activated immune cells and bone cells represent a key element supporting the pathogenesis of bone alterations and structural joint damage. While systemic and local bone loss is the common feature of chronic inflammatory rheumatic diseases, in spondyloarthritis, the coexistence of bone loss and new bone formation is observed, and this aspect highlights the extreme complexity of the regulatory processes responsible for bone alterations. Further, there is increasing evidence concerning the role of immune cells in the pathogenesis of bone damage and in degenerative, non-inflammatory joint diseases, such as osteoarthritis, and in conditions that are characterized by a low-grade inflammation, such as post-menopausal osteoporosis. Even if the identification of potential therapeutic targets to reduce inflammation-related bone loss is still limited, recent advances concerning the comprehension of the molecular mechanisms underlying the modern therapeutic approaches of inflammatory rheumatic diseases suggest that the appropriate control of systemic and local inflammation and the inhibition of specific immune mediators are able not only to reduce the disease activity but also to interfere with the detrimental effect of activated immune cells on bone homeostasis.

This Special Issue of IJMS focused on the advances in the field of osteoimmunology in relation to bone abnormalities observed in inflammatory and in degenerative chronic rheumatic diseases, particularly concerning the pathogenesis of systemic bone loss and local bone changes, and the possible therapeutic implications of better understanding the molecular mechanisms and the regulatory processes underlying the relationship between bone and immune system.

Prof. Dr. Addolorata Corrado
Guest Editor

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• osteoimmunology
• bone loss
• inflammation
• osteoporosis
• arthritis
• rheumatology
• bone cells
• immune cells