Asthma Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Asthma, including details on symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, causes, medications.

Chemokine receptors: understanding their role in asthmatic disease.

Miller AL, Lukacs NW

Department of Pathology, University of Michigan Medical School, 1301 Catherine, 5214 MSI, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.

The incidence, prevalence, and severity of asthma have been increasing steadily in recent years. Prophylactic treatment of this disease and of episodic asthmatic flares is aimed at preventing excessive inflammation in lung tissue and airways. Because chemokines and chemokine receptors are critical mediators of leukocyte trafficking and recruitment, there is the potential to pharmaceutically target these proteins to regulate inflammation. Asthma-associated inflammation is characterized by the infiltration of eosinophils and T helper type 2 cells. Early studies investigated the role of chemokine receptors, which have been shown to predominate on these cell populations.

Published 11 October 2004 in Immunol Allergy Clin North Am, 24(4): 667-83, vii.
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