Rat CINC (cytokine-induced neutrophil chemoattractant) is the homolog of the human GRO proteins but is encoded by a single gene.

Human GRO and rat CINC proteins are members of the pro-inflammatory "chemokine" superfamily of chemotactic cytokines which includes IL-8. We have used Northern and Southern blot analyses to compare the expression of CINC-related and GRO transcripts in human cells and to compare the hybridization patterns of CINC and GRO probes in human and rat genomic DNA. Our data indicate that rat CINC is encoded by a single gene unlike GRO-alpha, -beta and -gamma which are encoded by three distinct genes and that they are the nearest homologs to each other from their respective species.