title: Fractalkine/CX3CR1 and atherosclerosis.
abstract: Fractalkine is a unique chemokine which has both adhesive and chemoattractant functions. With the increasing emphasis on the importance of inflammation in atherosclerosis, more attention has been focused on the role of chemokines in atherosclerosis. It has been shown that fractalkine/CX3CR1 participates in the atherosclerotic pathological process through mediating the recruitment of leukocytes and the interaction of vascular cells and leukocytes. Some signal pathways are simultaneously activated through fractalkine/CX3CR1 coupling to promote the inflammatory response in atherosclerotic vessels. Additionally, fractalkine has cytotoxic effects on endothelium as well as anti-apoptosis and proliferative effects on vascular cells which consequently changes plaque components and stability in plaque. Several studies have showed that fractalkine or CX3CR1 deficiency in atherosclerotic mice would ameliorate the severity of plaque. Population studies on CX3CR1 polymorphism have confirmed that 280M-containing haplotype is associated with reduced risk of atherosclerotic disease. Despite the apparent association with atherosclerosis, further studies on fractalkine/CX3CR1 chemokine pair are clearly warranted to more fully elucidate this relationship.
authors.affiliation: Department of Geriatrics, the Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Changsha, Hunan 410011, China. katharinehong@163.com
authors.forename: Hong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Deqian
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Jiang
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D050197:Atherosclerosis / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology; D001792:Blood Platelets / Q000378:metabolism; D001808:Blood Vessels / Q000473:pathology; D054428:Chemokine CX3CL1 / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D006801:Humans; D011110:Polymorphism, Genetic; D015854:Up-Regulation
chemical_list: D054428:Chemokine CX3CL1