title: Therapeutic potential of the chemokine-receptor duo fractalkine/CX3CR1: an update.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The chemokine fractalkine/CX3CL1 and its highly selective receptor CX3CR1 mediate critical physiological events during inflammatory responses. The fractalkine/CX3CR1 axis has been shown to play a key role in the pathogenesis and the progression of a large number of diseases in which imbalance of the immune response is frequently seen. Since our last review published in early 2010, the fractalkine/CX3CR1 axis has gained vast attention as a potential therapeutic target in the scientific community, which can be clearly seen in the large number of studies that have been published on this issue since then.
  
  
  METHODS
  A Medline/PubMed search was performed to detect all recently published studies on the role of the fractalkine/CX3CR1 axis as a therapeutic target in a wide range of clinical diseases.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Recently published studies further underline the high potential of the fractalkine/CX3CR1 axis as a major target for future treatment of pain, inflammation and cancer. However, no clinical trials on novel therapeutics targeting fractalkine or CX3CR1 have been initiated so far, so that the fractalkine/CX3CR1 axis does still not find application in daily clinical practice.
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, Klinikum Rechts der Isar, Technische Universität München, Ismaninger Str. 22, D-81675 Munich, Germany.
authors.forename: Jan G
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: D'Haese
authors.forename: Helmut
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Friess
authors.forename: Güralp O
authors.initials: GO
authors.lastname: Ceyhan
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000073883:CX3C Chemokine Receptor 1; D054428:Chemokine CX3CL1 / Q000378:metabolism*; D006801:Humans; D007249:Inflammation / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000378:metabolism; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000378:metabolism; D010146:Pain / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000378:metabolism; D019707:Receptors, Chemokine / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D000073883:CX3C Chemokine Receptor 1; C515538:CX3CL1 protein, human; C095235:CX3CR1 protein, human; D054428:Chemokine CX3CL1; D019707:Receptors, Chemokine