Description
Chemokine SDF-1 is highly conserved among species and belongs to a large family of small, structurally related cytokines. It is a chemoattractant for T lymphocytes, monocytes, and hemopoietic stem cells and is constitutively expressed in bone-marrow-derived stromal cells. Recent reports indicate that SDF-1 is the ligand for LESTR/fusin and prevents infection by T-cell-line-adapted HIV-1. SDF-1a and SDF-1b, are generated by alternative RNA splicing of transcripts encoded by a single gene. SDF-1a differs from SDF-1b by four C-terminal amino acid residues absent in SDF-1a. As yet, no functional differences have been reported