A complex process including both the innate and acquired immune responses results in allograft rejection. Some chemokine receptors and their ligands play essential roles not only for leukocyte migration into the graft but also in facilitating dendritic and T cell trafficking between lymph nodes and the transplant in the early and late stage of the allogeneic response. This review focuses on the...

When my lab sequenced the first chemokine receptors CXCR2 and CCR1 in 1991, the top BLAST hit for CCR1 was open reading frame (ORF) US28 of human cytomegalovirus (HCMV), indicating an obvious common ancestor and a possible example of gene piracy. Pox virologists had already identified virally encoded TNF and IFN-γ binding proteins, copied from the host and redeployed as cytokine scavengers and ...

Chemokines remain attractive therapeutic targets for modulating inflammatory diseases in all areas of medicine including acute and chronic kidney disease. Industry has launched huge programs for the development of chemokine antagonists, and clinical trials with chemokine and chemokine receptor antagonists are ongoing. However, chemokine biology remains an area of unexpected discoveries. Here we...

Chemokines (CKs) are a family of small proteins secreted by a great variety of cell types. Their name (derived from chemoattractant cytokines) is due to their ability to induce directed chemotaxis in nearby responsive cells. Some CKs are considered pro-inflammatory and can be induced during an immune response to promote cells of the immune system to a site of infection, whereas others are consi...