Table 3 Molecular patterns of pathologic impact

Damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs), are also described as danger associated molecular patterns, danger signals, or alarmin. They are nuclear or cytosolic biomolecules of host organisms that can initiate and perpetuate inflammatory response to noninfectious stimuli such as cellular damage in general. Following their release from the damaged cell or damage related cellular surface expression DAMPs move from a reducing to an oxidizing environment leading to protein denaturation.

In contrast, pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) evoke and perpetuate the inflammatory cellular response to infectious pathogens. Nucleic acid variants normally associated with viruses, such as doublestranded RNA (dsRNA), recognized by toll-like receptors (TLR3) as well as bacterial lipopolysaccharides (LPSs), endotoxins found on the cell membranes of gram-negative bacteria, are considered to be the prototypical class of PAMPs.