Chemokines in Homeostasis and Cancers

Received: 29/jun/2008chemokines are a small group of related chemoattractant peptides that play an essential rolein the development and homeostatic maintenance of the immune system. they control therecruitment of cells needed for the induction and activation of innate and adaptive immune responses.stromal cell-derived factor 1(sdf-1) and its receptor (cxcr4) have role in regulationof trafficking of normal hematopoietic stem cells (hscs) in their homing/ retention in bonemarrow, also they control lymphocyte trafficking, angiogenesis, cell adherent or migration. inaddition, chemokines and their receptors involved in several auto- immune diseases such asinflammation, hiv. in fact, chemokines are involved directly or indirectly in almost every aspectof tumorigenesis. they mediate survival and metastatic spread of tumors, promote newblood vessel formation (neovascularization). sdf- 1/ cxcr4 axis for migration, enhanced resistanceto apoptosis and an increased capacity for drug resistance. .a number of therapeuticstrategies have been proposed to target almost every step of the chemokine or chemokinereceptor involvement in tumors. yet, despite occasional success stories, most of them appearto be ineffective or impractical,. the strategy would only be effective if it also promoted antitumoractivity and more study is needed to clear the tumor relapse mechanism..