Department of Geriatrics, the Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Changsha, Hunan 410011, China.
Clin Chim Acta. 2011 Jun 11;412(13-14):1180-6. doi: 10.1016/j.cca.2011.03.036. Epub 2011 Apr 6.
Fractalkine is a unique chemokine which has both adhesive and chemoattractant functions. With the increasing emphasis on the importance of inflammation in atherosclerosis, more attention has been focused on the role of chemokines in atherosclerosis. It has been shown that fractalkine/CX3CR1 participates in the atherosclerotic pathological process through mediating the recruitment of leukocytes and the interaction of vascular cells and leukocytes. Some signal pathways are simultaneously activated through fractalkine/CX3CR1 coupling to promote the inflammatory response in atherosclerotic vessels. Additionally, fractalkine has cytotoxic effects on endothelium as well as anti-apoptosis and proliferative effects on vascular cells which consequently changes plaque components and stability in plaque. Several studies have showed that fractalkine or CX3CR1 deficiency in atherosclerotic mice would ameliorate the severity of plaque. Population studies on CX3CR1 polymorphism have confirmed that 280M-containing haplotype is associated with reduced risk of atherosclerotic disease. Despite the apparent association with atherosclerosis, further studies on fractalkine/CX3CR1 chemokine pair are clearly warranted to more fully elucidate this relationship.
趋化因子 fractalkine 兼具黏附作用和趋化作用。随着人们对动脉粥样硬化中炎症重要性的认识不断提高，趋化因子在动脉粥样硬化中的作用受到了更多的关注。研究表明，趋化因子 fractalkine/CX3CR1 通过介导白细胞募集以及血管细胞与白细胞的相互作用，参与动脉粥样硬化的病理过程。趋化因子 fractalkine/CX3CR1 耦联可同时激活某些信号通路，促进动脉粥样硬化血管的炎症反应。此外，fractalkine 对血管内皮具有细胞毒性作用，对血管细胞具有抗凋亡和增殖作用，进而改变斑块成分和斑块的稳定性。一些研究表明，动脉粥样硬化小鼠中 fractalkine 或 CX3CR1 的缺失可改善斑块的严重程度。对 CX3CR1 多态性的人群研究证实，含 280M 单倍型与动脉粥样硬化疾病风险降低相关。尽管与动脉粥样硬化有明显的相关性，但仍需要进一步研究 fractalkine/CX3CR1 趋化因子对，以更充分地阐明这种关系。
