BACKGROUND The aim of this study was to provide more insight into the question as to why blockade of CCR1, CCR2, and CCR5 may have failed in clinical trials in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients, using an in vitro monocyte migration system model. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Monocytes from healthy donors (HD; n = 8) or from RA patients (for CCR2 and CCR5 antibody n = 8; for CCR1 blockade n ...

INTRODUCTION Circulating inflammatory markers may play an important role in cognitive impairment at older ages. Mice deficient for the chemokine (C-C motif) receptor 2 (CCR2) develop an accelerated Alzheimer-like pathology. CCR2 is also important in neurogenesis. To identify human gene transcripts most closely associated with Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) scores, we undertook a genome-wi...

The chemokine receptors CCR2 and CCR5 play important roles in the recruitment of monocytes/macrophages and T cells. To better understand the role of both receptors in murine models of inflammatory diseases and to recognize potential problems when correlating these data to humans, we have generated mAbs against murine CCR2 and CCR5. In mice CCR2 is homogeneously expressed on monocytes and on 2--...

BACKGROUND Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is known to be a risk factor of coronary artery disease. The chemotaxis and adhesion of monocytes to the endothelium in the early atherosclerosis is important. This study aimed to investigate the effect of intermittent hypoxia, the hallmark of OSA, on the chemotaxis and adhesion of monocytes. METHODS Peripheral blood was sampled from 54 adults enrolled...

Monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1) and its receptor CCR2 stimulate inflammation response by activating and recruiting monocytes/macrophages. MCP-1 and CCR2 polymorphisms were reported to be associated with various diseases. To explore the relationship between MCP-1 and CCR2 polymorphisms and IgA nephropathy (IgAN), we conducted this case-control study by enrolling 351 IgAN patients and ...

Chronic inflammation is a hallmark of cancer. Inflammatory chemokines, such as C-C chemokine ligand 2 (CCL2), are often present in tumors but their roles in cancer initiation and maintenance are not clear. Here we report that CCL2 promotes mammary carcinoma development in a clinically relevant murine model of breast cancer. Targeted disruption of Ccl2 slowed the growth of activated Her2/neu-dri...

Previous results from this laboratory revealed the presence of high-affinity saturable binding sites for monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1) along human brain microvessels (Andjelkovic et al., 1999; Andjelkovic and Pachter, 2000), which suggested that CC chemokine receptor 2 (CCR2), the recognized receptor for this chemokine, was expressed by the brain microvascular endothelium. To test ...

Pulmonary fibrosis can be modeled in animals by intratracheal instillation of FITC, which results in acute lung injury, inflammation, and extracellular matrix deposition. We have previously shown that despite chronic inflammation, this model of pulmonary fibrosis is lymphocyte independent. The CC chemokine monocyte-chemoattractant protein-1 is induced following FITC deposition. Therefore, we ha...

Monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1) is a potent agonist for mononuclear leukocytes and has been implicated in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis and granulomatous lung disease. To determine the role of MCP-1 and related family members in vivo, we used homologous recombination in embryonic stem cells to generate mice with a targeted disruption of C-C chemokine receptor 2 (CCR2), the rece...

The chemokine-like, secreted protein product of the U83 gene from human herpesvirus 6, here named vCCL4, was chemically synthesized to be characterized in a complete library of the 18 known human chemokine receptors expressed individually in stably transfected cell lines. vCCL4 was found to cause calcium mobilization as efficiently as the endogenous chemokine ligand CCL2 through the CCR2 recept...