Complement Inhibitors: Development, Mechanisms, and Disease Models

Dear colleagues,

The complement system is a proteolytic cascade involving dozens of proteins that interact and function with one another to form a first line of defense against invading pathogens. While its role as a primary effector arm of innate immunity is well established, the complement system is also central to diverse physiological processes, including homeostatic maintenance, priming of adaptive immune responses, and clearance of immune complexes. However, when the finely tuned regulation of the complement cascade is lost, the complement system can inappropriately target healthy host tissues. Due to this, the complement system has been implicated in a wide range of human autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. Advances in the understanding of the role of the complement system in different diseases have closely followed improved disease models, major genome-wide association studies, and an increased understanding of the genetic factors contributing to individual complement-related diseases. This knowledge has spurred an increased interest in the field of complement-directed therapeutics. However, it is unlikely that a one-size-fits-all approach will be successful, as the optimal intervention point within the cascade may vary in a disease-specific manner. In this Special Issue on “Complement Inhibitors: Development, Mechanisms, and Disease Models”, we aim to provide an open forum for researchers in the complement field to share new findings on the development and use of complement inhibitors. This Special Issue will cover research on the development of novel synthetic complement inhibitors, structure–function investigations on naturally occurring complement inhibitors and regulators, and research utilizing complement inhibitors to study the roles of specific complement targets in different complement-related pathologies. We welcome original research articles and a limited number of review manuscripts.

Dr. Brandon L. Garcia
Guest Editor

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• Complement inhibitors
• Complement-directed therapeutics
• The complement system
• Structure-based inhibitor design
• Structure–activity relationships
• X-ray crystallography
• Surface plasmon resonance
• NMR
• Drug discovery