Chemokines as targets for pharmacological intervention

Chemokines are a complex superfamily of mediators mainly involved in immune and inflammatory processes [1,2]. Structurally, they are characterized by 4 conserved Cys residues, the first 2 of which are in tandem. Based on the relative position of the Cys tandem a Cys-X-Cys and Cys-Cys family are distinguished, with IL-8 and monocyte chemotactic protein-1 as prototypic molecules. Recently a new molecule called lymphotactin with only one C residue was identified [3]. Chemokines act via 7 transmembrane domain, serpentine-type, receptors.