damageassociated

Damage-associated is an adjective used in scientific literature to describe signals related to tissue or cellular injury. It is most commonly encountered in the term damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs), a concept in immunology describing endogenous molecules that alert the immune system to sterile tissue damage in the absence of infection.

DAMPs are released by necrotic, stressed, or dying cells, or they can be actively secreted in response to cellular stress. They are detected by pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) such as Toll-like receptors, NOD-like receptors, and RAGE, on innate immune cells. This recognition can drive sterile inflammation by triggering cytokine production, chemokine release, and inflammasome activation, contributing to both protective and pathological inflammatory responses.

Common examples of DAMPs include high-mobility group box 1 protein (HMGB1), extracellular ATP, extracellular DNA and mitochondrial DNA, histones, heat shock proteins, and calcium-binding S100 proteins. The precise role of a molecule as a DAMP depends on context, including its concentration, localization, and the surrounding cellular environment.

DAMPs are clinically relevant in a range of conditions, such as trauma, myocardial or brain ischemia-reperfusion injury, sepsis without infection, autoimmune diseases, and cancer. They can influence the extent of tissue damage and the tumor microenvironment. Given their role in amplifying inflammation, therapies that neutralize DAMPs or block their receptors are explored to mitigate inflammatory injury and improve outcomes.