Inflammation leukocyte trafficking

As the number of chemokines and receptors continue to expand so too does the list of ascribed biological functions. Beyond their characterized roles in leukocyte trafficking and inflammation, chemokines have been shown to effect angiogenesis (24-26), hematopoiesis (27-29), T-cell differentiation (30), apoptosis (31), and viral infection (32,33), although the biological significance of these effects as well as the mechanism of action remain to be determined in many cases. Furthermore, chemokine receptor expression has been reported on nonlymphoid cell types in brain and vasculature (34,35). Antibodies will no doubt prove to be useful in determining the function of these receptors in other systems. 

Other members of the Ig-superfamily function in conjunction with counter-receptors from separate families of adhesion molecules in various events such as leukocyte trafficking and the movement of immune cells and probably tumor cells across cell barriers in inflammation and metastasis. These glycoproteins (Fig. 10) are the immune cell adhesion molecules ICAM-1, -2 and -3, the vascular cell adhesion molecule VCAM and the platelet-endothelial cell adhesion molecule PECAM [131-134]. 

Schall TJ, Bacon KB. Chemokines, leukocyte trafficking, and inflammation. Curr Opin Immunol 1994 6 865-873. 

Recent results have established that chemokines have a critical role in immunoregulation and inflammatory-cell activation using multiple mechanisms. Chemokine expression on the endothelial surface can stimulate the activation of cellular adhesion molecules on circulating leukocytes, and in so doing it can regulate leukocyte trafficking to the site of inflammation (Campbell et al, 1996). Selective chemokine expression directs the preferential recruitment of specific leukocyte populations that express the... 

In addition, TNFs also have a number of other effects including (1) apoptosis, (2) adhesion and cellular trafficking, (3) angiogenesis, (4) myocyte proliferation, (5) fibrosis, (6) phagocytosis, (7) cytokine production and/or cellular activation, (8) leukocyte/macrophages function, (9) inflammation, and (10) tumor control. 

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