TABLE 1.

Summary table on effects of DEX on immune cells and inflammatory cytokines.

Target cells	Effects
	Suppression	Induction	References
Dendritic cells	Pro-inflammatory cytokines (TNF-α, IL-1β IL-6, IFN-γ)	Anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10	Ueshima et al. (2013)
	Immunomodulatory factor (IL-12, IL-23)		Chen G. et al. (2016)
	Class II MHC and costimulatory molecules (I-Ab And CD86)		Guo et al. (2018)
			Huang et al. (2021)
Natural killer Cells	Development and metastasis of tumor	Increase the number and maintain the activity	Zhao et al. (2013)
			Yang et al. (2017)
			Wu L. et al. (2015)
Eosinophils	Chemokines (eotaxin)	------------------------	Kalbach et al. (2019)
Mast cells	Degranulation Proteolytic enzyme MMP-9	Proteolytic enzyme MMP-2	Tüfek et al. (2013)
			Matsumoto (2009)
Neutrophils	Pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-6, TNF-α, Necrosis factor)	Elimination of pathogen	Chen S. L. et al. (2016)
	Antimicrobial effectors (ROS, RNS, NO, iNOS) Respiratory eruption		Yuan et al. (2020)
	Local aggregation of neutrophils		Cowburn et al. (2008)
Monocytes	The ratio of CD42+/CD14+ Pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-6, TNF-α)	The ratio of HLADR+/CD14+	Zhou et al. (2017)
	The expression of Cx43, PKC-α, VLA-4 and LFA-1		Chai et al. (2020)
	Monocyte-endothelial cells adhesion
Macrophages	Pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-6, COX-II, PGE2, HMGB1)	TNF-α, IL-1β Transforming growth factor TGF-β1	Martinez Fernando and Gordon (2014)
	Inflammatory protein MIP-2	Anti-inflammatory cytokine (IL-10)	Lai et al. (2009)
		The production of Th1 cells by promoting the secretion of IL-12 Polarization of M2	Zhou et al. (2020)
		Clearance of Neutrophil and autophagy of mitochondrial	Li et al. (2021)
			Wang K. et al. (2019)
			Piazza et al. (2016)
B cells		Chemokine (IL-2)	Ma et al. (2017)
			Liu et al. (2018)
T cells	The amount of CD8+ The amount of CD3+, CD4+, CD4+/CD8+	Pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-17A) Immune regulatory factors (IFN-γ)	Huang et al. (2021)
			Yang et al. (2017)
			Lee et al. (2018)
			Song et al. (2020)