Description
Chemokines are members of a superfamily of small inducible, secreted, proinflammatory cytokines. Members of the chemokine family exhibit 20 to 50% homology in their predicted amino acid sequences and are divided into four subfamilies. In C-C (or b) subfamily, the first two cysteines are adjacent. C-C chemokines are chemoattractants and activators for monocytes and T cells. C-C subfamily members include macrophage inflammatory protein (MIP)-1a, MIP-1b, MIP-2, MIP-3a, MIP-3b, MIP-4, HCC-1, MIP-5 (or HCC-2), RANTES, MCP-1/2/3 (and the murine homologs JE and MARC), I-309, murine C10 and TCA3. MIP-4 is constituitively expressed in several normal tissues and is highly expressed in plasma