Introduction of Chemokines

Chemokines are chemotactic cytokines (approximately 8–17 kDa) with the ability to bind G protein-coupled receptors. Accumulating evidence suggests that in addition to inflammation, chemokines are important regulators in development, homeostasis, and pathophysiological processes associated with osteoporosis , obesity and insulin resistance, viral infections, immune responses, mobilization of progenitors to the bone marrow, and autoimmune encephalomyelitis. To date over 50 chemokines have been identified.The superfamily of chemokines is subclassified on the basis of the arrangement of cysteine residues located in the N-terminal region, as designated C, CC, CXC, and CX3C members, in which C represents the number of cysteine residues in the N-terminal region and X denotes the number of intervening amino acids in between the first two cysteines.