ABSTRACT
The inflammatory process is vital for the survival of higher eukaryotic organisms. Although it is a tightly regulated system, failures in the checks and balances can occur, resulting in disease. With the exception of rare genetic deficiencies such as leukocyte adhesion disorders due to defects in [32 integrin (Anderson and Springer, 1987), patients with X-linked hyper-IgM syndrome due to defects in CD40L (Aruffo et al., 1993) or an autosomal recessive form of severe combined immunodeficiency due to a mutation in zap-70 (Chan et al., 1994), the underlying cause of the diseases is unknown.
