BORDERZONE INFLAMMATION

Study finds new source of cardiac inflammation

Inflammation after MI is classically credited to professional immune cells like neutrophils and macrophages that infiltrate the infarcted heart and respond to molecules in the debris of dying cells. So the team was surprised when they discovered that the proinflammatory "type I interferon (IFN) response" was activated, not in the infarct where immune cells were concentrated, but instead in the borderzone, surrounding the infarct.