Cytokine Knockouts

Carrying on the high standards of the much-praised first edition (Durum and Muegge, Cytokine Knockouts, 1998), Giamila Fantuzzi and a panel of experts have generated completely new chapters to reflect the use of many novel mouse strains and the hundreds of recent studies on cytokine physiology. Comprehensive reviews of the numerous, often surprising results obtained using cytokine knockout mice are provided, along with much important information about cytokine biology. For those not familiar with cytokine research, in part I the authors present a critical discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of using cytokine knockout mice in various fields of research. In their discussion of research methodology and data interpretation, the writers stress the need for caution when trying to interpret data, especially when these may affect clinical practice, and the danger of forgetting the possible effects of redundancy and of unspecified perturbations in the immune system when a single gene is deleted. Chapters dealing with mice deficient for single cytokines and/or cytokine receptors are presented in part II.§Cutting-edge and highly instructive, Cytokine Knockouts, Second Edition illuminates for researchers today both the usefulness of cytokine knockout mice to study a wide variety of cytokine phenomena and the possible complications of such studies.