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Innate immunity refers to defense mechanisms that are always present, ready to combat microbes and other offending agents. Innate immunity acts as a first-line defense and activates the conventional immune responses; however, it has been speculated that the importance of innate immunity in initiation and development of some disorders is more than just the "first line of defense". Autoimmune diseases, caused by immune system overactivation, are among the most challenging scientific and clinical problems, and there is still much to be learned about their pathogenesis. We aimed to provide a comprehensive overview of available documents about the role of innate immunity in systemic autoimmune diseases including rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, Sjögren's syndrome, polymyositis, and systemic sclerosis. This study highlights the innate immunity pathways or molecules that are under investigation for therapy of these diseases.

Oncolytic virotherapy has currently emerged as a powerful therapeutic approach in cancer treatment. Although the history of using viruses goes back to the early 20th century, the approval of talimogene laherparepvec (T-VEC) in 2015 increased interest in oncolytic viruses (OVs). OVs are multifaceted biotherapeutic agents because they replicate in and kill tumor cells and augment immune responses by releasing immunostimulatory molecules from lysed cells. Despite promising results, some limitations hinder the efficacy of oncolytic virotherapy. The delivery challenges and the upregulation of checkpoints following oncolytic virotherapy also mediate resistance to OVs by diminishing immune responses. Furthermore, the localization of receptors of viruses in the tight junctions, interferon responses, and the aberrant expression of genes involved in the cell cycle of the virus, including their infection and replication, reduce the efficacy of OVs. In this review, we present different mechanisms of resistance to OVs and strategies to overcome them.Lay abstract Using viruses in the treatment of cancer goes back to the early 20th century. One of the promising fields in cancer virotherapy is viruses’ ability to preferentially lysis tumor cells, either naturally or genetically engineered cells; these viruses are termed ‘oncolytic viruses.’ As with other therapeutic strategies, resistance to the oncolytic viruses is the main challenge in their application in clinical trials. This review summarizes the mechanisms of resistance to oncolytic viruses and the strategies that have been used to overcome these challenges.

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic autoimmune disease caused by established chronic inflammation. Neopterin levels have extensively been considered as a marker of immune activation during inflammation. In this study, we performed a systematic evaluation and meta-analysis to elucidate the overall relationship between neopterin concentration and RA disease activity. Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis guidelines, a systematic review was conducted using PubMed, Google Scholar, Web of Science, and Scopus from 2000 to August 2020. The Newcastle-Ottawa scale was used to assess the quality of eligible studies. The effect size (ES) and corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated to evaluate this association. A total of 15 studies out of 98 met our inclusion criteria. The pooled analysis found that patients with RA had high level of neopterin; however, no statistically significant association was found between neopterin levels with high, intermediate, and low diseases activity score (DAS)-28 (ES =11.18, 95% CI: 6.02 to 16.34, and I2 = 91.8%; and ES = 8.57, 95% CI: 6.41 to 10.37, and I2 = 99.5%; and ES =12.45, 95% CI: -1.68 to 26.58, and I2 = 99.0%, respectively). Our results indicated that the neopterin concentration does not seem to have any substantial impact on the RA disease activity.