Chemokines fall mainly into two related but distinct groups. CC chemokines have two adjacent cysteine residues near the amino terminus, whereas in CXC chemokines the corresponding two cysteine residues are separated by a single amino acid. The CC chemokines promote the migration of monocytes, lymphocytes, and other cell types. One example relevant to innate immunity is CCL2, which attracts monocytes through the receptor CCR2B, inducing their migration from the bloodstream to become tissue macrophages. In contrast, neutrophil migration is promoted by CXC chemokines. CXCL8, acting through CXCR2, mobilizes neutrophils from bone marrow and induces them to leave the blood and migrate into the surrounding tissues. CCL2 and CXCL8 therefore have similar but complementary functions in the innate immune response, attracting monocytes and neutrophils respectively.
The role of chemokines in cell recruitment is twofold. First, they act on the leukocyte as it rolls along endothelial cells at sites of inflammation, converting this rolling into stable binding by triggering a change of conformation in the adhesion molecules known as leukocyte integrins. These conformational changes enable integrins to bind strongly to their ligands on the endothelial cells, which allows the leukocyte to cross the blood vessel walls by squeezing between the endothelial cells. Second, the chemokine directs the migration of the leukocyte along a gradient of chemokine molecules bound to the extracellular matrix and the surfaces of endothelial cells. This gradient increases in concentration toward the site of infection.
Chemokines are produced by a wide variety of cell types in response to bacterial products, viruses, and agents that cause physical damage, such as silica, alum, or the urate crystals that occur in gout. Complement fragments such as C3a and C5a, and fMLF bacterial peptides, also act as chemoattractants for neutrophils. Thus, infection or physical damage to tissues induces the production of chemokine gradients that can direct phagocytes to the sites where they are needed. Neutrophils arrive rapidly in large numbers at a site of infection. The recruitment of monocytes occurs simultaneously, but they accumulate more slowly at the site of infection, perhaps because they are less abundant in the circulation. The complement fragment C5a and the chemokines CXCL8 and CCL2 activate their respective target cells, so that not only are neutrophils and monocytes brought to potential sites of infection but, in the process, they are armed to deal with the pathogens they encounter there. In particular, the signaling induced by C5a or CXCL8 in neutrophils serves to augment the respiratory burst that generates oxygen radicals and nitric oxide and to induce the neutrophils to release their stored antimicrobial granule contents (see Section 3-2).
Chemokines do not act alone in cell recruitment. They require the action of vasoactive mediators that bring leukocytes close to the blood vessel wall (see Section 3-3) and cytokines such as TNF-α to induce the necessary adhesion molecules on endothelial cells. We will return to the chemokines in later chapters, where they are discussed in the context of the adaptive immune response. Now, however, we turn to the molecules that enable leukocytes to adhere to the endothelium, and we shall then describe step by step the extravasation process by which monocytes and neutrophils enter infected sites.
response.
The recruitment of activated phagocytes to sites of infection is one of the most important functions of innate immunity. Recruitment occurs as part of the inflammatory response and is mediated by cell-adhesion molecules that are induced on the surface of the endothelial cells of local blood vessels. Here we
MOVIE 3.9
Chapter 3: The Induced Responses of Innate Immunity consider those functions that participate in the recruitment of inflammatory
MOVIE 3.10 cells in the hours to days after the establishment of an infection.