Chemokines and chemokine receptors in cancer progression

Abstract

Directed cell migration is a fundamental component of numerous biological systems and is critical to the pathology of many diseases. Although the importance of chemokines in providing navigational cues to migrating cells bearing specific receptors is well-established, how chemokine function is regulated is not so well understood and may be of key importance to the design of new therapeutics for numerous human diseases, particularly for the control of cancer growth and metastasis, diseases in which chemokines have recently been implicated. In this review, we discuss the general views on the role of specific chemokines in these pathological processes. In addition, we discuss two novel aspects of chemokine cancer biology; cross-talk between chemokine and growth factor receptors, and refractory chemokine receptors.