Editorial: Innate Immunity Programming and Memory in Resolving and Non-Resolving Inflammation

Emerging studies reveal that “memory” responses of innate leukocytes generate adaptive reprogramming following challenges with signals of varying strength and durations. As a result, there are dynamic memory states such as priming, tolerance and exhaustion, as previously published by the Li research group in the Frontiers of Immunology (1). Diverse signals including microbial cues, cytokines, and metabolic products induce the varied reprogramming of inflammation and immunity, leading to distinct nature of the memory states of innate leukocytes. Innate memory dynamics profoundly impact, not only on our fundamental understanding of the immune system’s cohesive functions, but may translate to interventions for infectious and inflammatory diseases, ranging from acute sepsis to chronic atherosclerosis (2–4).