The Chemistry of Attraction

Chemokines and their receptors help direct cell migration to sites of inflammation. You heard it here--chemokine receptors and ligands are in. Inflammation, cancer, asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, angiogenesis, and AIDS are just a few areas in which chemokines and their receptors are crucial. Therefore, chemokine pathways represent potentially valuable therapeutic targets. Asthma, one of the most common chronic diseases in the industrialized world, is recognized as an inflammatory disease, and ste

Written byMichelle Vettese-dadey
| 6 min read

Register for free to listen to this article
Listen with Speechify
0:00
6:00
Share


Chemokines and their receptors help direct cell migration to sites of inflammation.
You heard it here--chemokine receptors and ligands are in. Inflammation, cancer, asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, angiogenesis, and AIDS are just a few areas in which chemokines and their receptors are crucial. Therefore, chemokine pathways represent potentially valuable therapeutic targets. Asthma, one of the most common chronic diseases in the industrialized world, is recognized as an inflammatory disease, and steroids are the treatment of choice. However, concern about the long-term effects of steroid use has researchers studying chemokine receptor function in their quest for alternative treatments. Another factor in the fashionability of chemokine receptors made headlines when a chemokine receptor was found to be a coreceptor for HIV-1.1

Chemokines, short for chemotactic cytokines, are a complex superfamily of small, secreted proteins (6-14 kD) that were originally characterized by their effects on a variety of leukocytes. Usually chemokines act on more ...

Interested in reading more?

Become a Member of

The Scientist Logo
Receive full access to digital editions of The Scientist, as well as TS Digest, feature stories, more than 35 years of archives, and much more!
Already a member? Login Here

Meet the Author

Published In

Share
Image of small blue creatures called Nergals. Some have hearts above their heads, which signify friendship. There is one Nergal who is sneezing and losing health, which is denoted by minus one signs floating around it.
June 2025, Issue 1

Nergal Networks: Where Friendship Meets Infection

A citizen science game explores how social choices and networks can influence how an illness moves through a population.

View this Issue
An illustration of green lentiviral particles.

Maximizing Lentivirus Recovery

cytiva logo
Unraveling Complex Biology with Advanced Multiomics Technology

Unraveling Complex Biology with Five-Dimensional Multiomics

Element Bioscience Logo
Resurrecting Plant Defense Mechanisms to Avoid Crop Pathogens

Resurrecting Plant Defense Mechanisms to Avoid Crop Pathogens

Twist Bio 
The Scientist Placeholder Image

Seeing and Sorting with Confidence

BD

Products

The Scientist Placeholder Image

Waters Enhances Alliance iS HPLC System Software, Setting a New Standard for End-to-End Traceability and Data Integrity 

The Scientist Placeholder Image

Agilent Unveils the Next Generation in LC-Mass Detection: The InfinityLab Pro iQ Series

agilent-logo

Agilent Announces the Enhanced 8850 Gas Chromatograph

parse-biosciences-logo

Pioneering Cancer Plasticity Atlas will help Predict Response to Cancer Therapies