Macrophages are important effector cells in the human immune system and are found in almost every tissue in the human body. They are crucial to functioning of both the innate and adaptive elements of the immune system with different, but related, macrophage types both activating and suppressing the immune response as well as being involved in wound healing and secretion of regulatory cytokines.
Pharmaceutical manipulation of macrophage function offers a promising way to treat diseases in which the macrophage function or the immune system is either malfunctioning or imbalanced.
Key regulators of macrophage function, and thus targets for transcriptional reprogramming, such as kinases molecules and transcription factors, also play key role in other immune cells like T and B lymphocytes, NK cells, granulocytes, as well as epithelial and stromal cells.
