Chemokines and Chemokine Receptors
A special issue of Pharmaceuticals (ISSN 1424-8247). This special issue belongs to the section "Pharmacology".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2024) | Viewed by 894
Special Issue Editor
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Chemokines are proinflammatory chemoattractant cytokines that play a fundamental role in a multitude of physiological processes, besides being primarily involved in leukocyte trafficking. These processes include homeostasis and other biological activities, such as development, angiogenesis, and hematopoiesis. Along with their receptors, chemokines are involved in the pathogenesis of a wide range of inflammatory diseases, including cancers, when dysregulated. In light of their key involvement in a plethora of diseases, the chemokine ligand–receptor system offers an attractive therapeutic target for the pharmaceutical industry.
In the past two decades, numerous attempts have been made to develop drugs targeting chemokine receptors; however, only a few are clinically approved. Around 45 drugs targeting chemokine receptors have been developed, yet only three are clinically approved. The major limitation in this field is the complex nature of aberrant chemokine signaling, which makes it difficult to understand the redundancy of chemokine receptor–ligand binding. Besides being involved in disease pathogenesis, chemokine signaling plays a critical role in many physiological processes that pose an additional challenge. Moreover, the broad ligand-binding pockets of chemokine receptors makes it difficult to design highly specific antagonists leading to non-specific binding, which may pose debilitating off-target effects. Recently, numerous advancements have been made using fluorescence (FRET) and bioluminescence (BRET) resonance energy transfer techniques to characterize the chemokine ligand–receptor interactions and the downstream signaling protein–protein interactions, aiming to fine tune intricate signaling pathways in the chemokine system for the development of precision medicine.
In this Special Issue, authors are invited to submit their original and review articles that provide mechanistic insights into the chemokine system and highlight some potential strategies in the future development of chemokine-directed therapy.
I look forward to your valuable contributions.
Dr. Neeraj Kapur
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- chemokines
- chemokine receptors
- cancer
- inflammatory
- cytokines
- ligand
- signaling
