title: Chemokine binding proteins: An immunomodulatory strategy going viral.
abstract: Chemokines are chemotactic cytokines whose main function is to direct cell migration. The chemokine network is highly complex and its deregulation is linked to several diseases including immunopathology, cancer and chronic pain. Chemokines also play essential roles in the antiviral immune response. Viruses have therefore developed several counter strategies to modulate chemokine activity. One of these is the expression of type I transmembrane or secreted proteins with the ability to bind chemokines and modulate their activity. These proteins, termed viral chemokine binding proteins (vCKBP), do not share sequence homology with host proteins and are immunomodulatory in vivo. In this review we describe the discovery and characterization of vCKBP, explain their role in the context of infection in vivo and discuss relevant novel findings.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Virology, Hannover Medical School, Carl-Neuberg Strasse 1, 30625 Hannover, Germany. Electronic address: Gonzalezmotos.victor@mh-hannover.de.
authors.forename: Víctor
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: González-Motos
authors.affiliation: Institute of Virology, Hannover Medical School, Carl-Neuberg Strasse 1, 30625 Hannover, Germany. Electronic address: Kropp.kai@mh-hannover.de.
authors.forename: Kai A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Kropp
authors.affiliation: Institute of Virology, Hannover Medical School, Carl-Neuberg Strasse 1, 30625 Hannover, Germany. Electronic address: Viejo-borbolla.abel@mh-hannover.de.
authors.forename: Abel
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Viejo-Borbolla
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002352:Carrier Proteins / Q000276:immunology*; D018925:Chemokines / Q000276:immunology*; D006801:Humans; D011485:Protein Binding; D014764:Viral Proteins / Q000276:immunology*; D014777:Virus Diseases / Q000276:immunology*
chemical_list: D002352:Carrier Proteins; D018925:Chemokines; D014764:Viral Proteins
keywords: Chemokine; Glycosaminoglycan; Herpesvirus; Immune evasion; Poxvirus; vCKBP