Introduction
inflammation
INFLAMMATION, SKIN INFLAMMATION
Edited by: Oliver Planz, University of Tübingen, GermanyReviewed by: Christophe Pellefigues, CNRS EMR8252 Centre de Recherche sur l’Inflammation, France; Elaine Tritto, Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, SwitzerlandImiquimod (IMQ) is a topical agent that induces local inflammation Early phase clinical research commonly evaluates the safety, tolerability, and pharmacological activity of novel compounds (A widely used preclinical model to study (modulation of) inflammation, also applied in healthy volunteers (HV), is the topical imiquimod (IMQ) challenge, which drives a toll-like receptor (TLR) 7-mediated response. The TLR-dependent pathway activates nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) signaling and IRF An alternative human innate immune challenge model is intradermal LPS challenge, which drives TLR4-mediated responses. Corticosteroid treatment (oral prednisolone and topical clobetasol propionate) suppressed the characteristics of the dermal inflammatory reaction, which was also reflected by a reduction in inflammatory cell attraction in the blister fluid (Therefore, in this study, we aimed to profile the cellular, biochemical and clinical effects of oral prednisolone on the IMQ skin inflammation model in healthy volunteers with the goal of i) benchmarking the IMQ model for future novel anti-inflammatory compounds, ii) expanding the mechanistic insights into the IMQ-driven skin response by a more thorough molecular and cellular evaluation, and iii) gaining insight into the immunomodulatory mechanism of prednisolone in TLR7-mediated tissue inflammation.