Chemokines mimics

IV. Viral Chemokines and Receptors, Chemokine Mimics, and Chemokine Binding Proteins... 

Lentiviridae HIV gpl20 Chemokine mimic HIV entry, leukocyte chemotaxis, apoptosis, calcium flux... 

Datta A, Stone MJ. Soluble mimics of a chemokine receptor chemokine binding by receptor elements juxtaposed on a soluble scaffold. Protein Sci 2003 12 2482-91. 

Quinones MP, Ahuja SK, Jimenez F, et al. Experimental arthritis in CC chemokine receptor 2-null mice closely mimics severe human rheumatoid arthritis. J Clin Invest 2004 113(6) 856-866. 

The lymph node microenvironment represents a niche where CLL cells interact with different types of cells including monocyte-derived nurse-like cells (NLC), CD3+ CD4+ CD154+ T cells, mesenchymal stromal cells, dendritic cells, and endothelial cells (15). In addition to cell-cell interactions, CLL cells are also exposed to a variety of soluble factors such as antigens, cytokines, and chemokines (2). It is the combination of such signals that renders CLL cells less susceptible to chemotherapy and promotes clonal evolution and drug resistance. Thus, the role of the microenvironment needs to be carefully considered in order to develop novel and more effective therapies for CLL treatment (16). In particular, the efficacy of new drugs must be evaluated under experimental conditions that recapitulate (or at least partially mimic) the CLL microenvironment. 

One fairly new system is the Modular Immune in vitro Construct technology system (MIMIC), which can measure innate and adaptive immune responses and evaluate cytokines, antibodies, and chemokines in vitro. The system is based on a multidimensional interrogation of quiescent primary human cells mainly of blood origin that can reproduce immune responses in a cell-based high-throughput screen and rapidly capture the effect of an immunoresponsive agent (e.g.,... 

An RNA aptamer has been selected to activate the carboxylic acid of amino acids that mimics the formation of a mixed phosphate anhydride synthesis of aminoacyl tRNA synthetases. The optimal aptamer requires only Ca + for the reaction, and operates at low pH with Xm 50 mM and /ccat 1.1 min for the activation of leucine. This lends support to the concept of translation in an RNA-based world. An RNA-cleaving DNAzyme has been used to target a chemokine receptor required by HIV-1 for entry into susceptible cells. The DNAzyme was found to be very efficient, and specifically interfered with the fusion of cells that harboured the T-lymphocytotropic HIV-1 envelope. 

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