Chemokine signaling is essential for coordinated cell migration in health and disease to specifically govern cell positioning in space and time. Typically, chemokines signal through heptahelical, G protein-coupled receptors to orchestrate cell migration. Notably, chemokine receptors are highly dynamic structures and signaling efficiency largely depends on the discrete contact with the ligand. P...

Chemokine signaling is essential for coordinated cell migration in health and disease to specifically govern cell positioning in space and time. Typically, chemokines signal through heptahelical, G protein-coupled receptors to orchestrate cell migration. Notably, chemokine receptors are highly dynamic structures and signaling efficiency largely depends on the discrete contact with the ligand. P...

Human chemokine receptors play an important role in the immune system by coordinating the migration of leukocytes to inflammatory sites. Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) has pirated and modified a chemokine receptor-encoding gene from the host for its own benefit. It is therefore believed this KSHV-encoded chemokine receptor named ORF74 is involved in evading antiviral immune resp...

Chemokine receptors regulate cell migration and homing. They belong to the rhodopsin-like family of GPCRs. Their ancestor genes emerged in the early stages of vertebrate evolution. Since then, the family has been greatly expanded through whole and segmental genome duplication events. During evolution, many amino acid changes have been introduced in individual chemokine receptors, but certain mo...

The question of why certain types of tumors often metastasize to the same organs has intrigued scientists for over a century. In 1889, Paget put forth the ‘‘seed and soil’’ concept that cancer cells (seed) spread in a nonrandom fashion to distant target organs where they are drawn based on a conducive microenvironmental milieu (soil; ref. 1). A second concept that has been around for sometime i...

In addition to the 7 transmembrane receptor (7TM)-conserved disulfide bridge between transmembrane (TM) helix 3 and extracellular loop (ECL)-2, chemokine receptors (CCR) contain a disulfide bridge between the N terminus and what previously was believed to be ECL-3. Recent crystal and NMR structures of the CXC chemokine receptors (CXCR) CXCR4 and CXCR1, combined with structural analysis of all e...

Objectives Chemokines are essential contributors to leucocyte accumulation at sites of inflammatory pathology. Interfering with chemokine or chemokine receptor function therefore represents a plausible therapeutic option. However, our currently limited understanding of chemokine orchestration of inflammatory responses means that such therapies have not yet been fully developed. We have a partic...

During infection, chemokines sequestered on endothelium induce recruitment of circulating leukocytes into the tissue where they chemotax along chemokine gradients toward the afflicted site. The aim of this in vivo study was to determine whether a chemokine gradient was formed intravascularly and influenced intraluminal neutrophil crawling and transmigration. A chemokine gradient was induced by ...