Chemokines

The chemokines, a superfamily of secreted proinflammatory cytokines, are induced by inflammatory stimuli and involved in regulating the selective migration and activation of leukocytes that mediate the inflammatory response. The chemokines seem to affect different, yet overlapping leukocyte subsets. Based on the positions of the first two out of four conserved cysteine residues in their primary structure, the superfamily members have been subdivided into two classes: the α or C-X-C class of chemokines, which maps to human chromosome 4, and the β or C-C class of chemokines, which maps to human chromosome 17.