Are Involved in Leukocyte Homeostasis and Effector Trafficking

Chemokines Are Involved in Leukocyte Homeostasis and Effector Trafficking 

Until recently, the structural subclassification based on the arrangement of the cysteine motif was an adequate classification system for chemokines and their receptors. However, this classification based on structure did not provide any indication of the functional role of the various chemokines. Therefore, an alternative system that relates expression to function has recently been developed. In this system, chemokines and chemokine receptors are classified according to their functional expression as either homeostatic/constitutive or inflamma-tory/inducible (Fig. 2). Homeostatic chemokines are expressed constitutively within lymphoid tissues and regulate movement of thymocytes through the thymus during selection and 

The systematic nomenclature was recently introduced following discussions at the 1998 Gordon Research Conference on Chemokines. It involves following the same nomenclature as already existed for the chemokine receptors. In general, all of the common alternative names for human and mouse chemokines have been listed. indicates yet to be identified. - human MIP-2a and MIP-2 3 are products of two separate genes. There has only been one mouse MIP-2 gene identified. 

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