CXC chemokines play a critical role in liver injury, recovery, and regeneration.
BACKGROUND
Hepatic ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury is a principal consideration of trauma, resectional liver surgery, and transplantation. Despite improvements in supportive care, hepatic I/R injury continues to negatively impact patient outcomes because of significant tissue damage and organ dysfunction. CXC chemokines have been implicated as key mediators in the deleterious inflammatory cascade after hepatic I/R and also as important, beneficial regulators of liver recovery and regeneration. As such, their potential to mediate both beneficial and detrimental effects on hepatocytes makes them a key target for therapy. Herein, we provide a review of the inflammatory mechanisms of hepatic I/R injury, with a focus on the divergent functions of CXC chemokines in this response compared with other liver insults, and offer an explanation of this apparent paradox.


METHODS
MEDLINE and PubMed.


CONCLUSIONS
CXC chemokines are key mediators of both the inflammatory response to hepatic I/R as well as the recovery from this injury. Their contrasting functions in the regeneration of liver mass after an ischemic insult indicates that therapeutic manipulation of these mediator pathways should differ depending on the surgical milieu.
Clarke
Callisia N
CN
Department of Surgery, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45267-0558, USA.
Kuboki
Satoshi
S
Tevar
Amit
A
Lentsch
Alex B
AB
Edwards
Michael
M
D000818:Animals; D019743:Chemokines, CXC / Q000378:metabolism / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D018836:Inflammation Mediators / Q000378:metabolism / Q000502:physiology*; D007511:Ischemia / Q000378:metabolism / Q000503:physiopathology*; D008115:Liver Regeneration / Q000502:physiology*; D020127:Recovery of Function / Q000502:physiology*; D015427:Reperfusion Injury / Q000378:metabolism / Q000503:physiopathology*; D015398:Signal Transduction
D019743:Chemokines, CXC; D018836:Inflammation Mediators