Chemokines and their receptors: orchestrating a fine balance between health and disease.

Chemokines are a family of small, structurally related proteins that may participate in immune and inflammatory responses through the chemoattraction and activation of leukocytes. These chemotactic cytokines mediate their effects by binding to the seven transmembrane domain superfamily of receptor proteins. Besides their role in leukocyte trafficking, chemokines and their receptors have been found to be implicated in a number of inflammatory and infectious diseases. Chemokines also appear to have beneficial effects involving tissue repair or tumor progression, angiogenesis, hematopoiesis, and antimicrobial mechanisms. These have recently been found to be involved in coordinating the cellular communication in the central nervous system as well. Based on these findings, chemokines agonists and antagonists targeted against chemokines and their receptors have the potential to become therapeutically important in the treatment of various diseases. This review explores the role of the chemokine system in the pathophysiology of diseases and their potential as targets for therapy.