Technology > Chemokine Basics
Chemokines or chemotactic cytokines are small secreted proteins central to inflammatory diseases. About 45 chemokines bind to G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) on leukocytes and provide directional cues to drive cells from the blood or tissue to the site of inflammation. For example, IL-8 is central to directing neutrophil infiltration, whereas MCP-1 is responsible mainly for directing monocytes/macrophage migration and SDF-1α is chemotactic for stem cells.
Pharmaceutical companies have mostly used small molecule GPCR receptor antagonists and monoclonal antibodies to target chemokines and the importance of chemokine-glycan interactions has largely remained unexplored. By developing biopharmaceuticals which bind glycans, ProtAffin avoids many limitations of established drug modalities, such as monoclonal antibodies and small molecules.
Pro-inflammatory chemokines bind to GAG chains displayed by proteoglycans on the inflamed endothelium and undergo conformational changes which are ultimately required for activation of the inflammatory response. ProtAffin has demonstrated that by administering glycan-binding decoy chemokines, we can disrupt the usual protein-glycan interactions, thereby reducing pathological processes usually directed by chemokines.
