Questions about Chemokine and Chemokine Receptor Antagonism in Renal Inflammation

Chemokines remain attractive therapeutic targets for modulating inflammatory diseases in all areas of medicine including acute and chronic kidney disease. Industry has launched huge programs for the development of chemokine antagonists, and clinical trials with chemokine and chemokine receptor antagonists are ongoing. However, chemokine biology remains an area of unexpected discoveries. Here we discuss a number of questions which need to be addressed to further explore the potential of chemokine antagonism in renal inflammation: Why does renal expression of chemokines and chemokine receptors not always correlate with their functional significance? Why does chemokine antagonism only partially reduce renal leukocyte counts? Will antagonist combinations be more effective in reducing renal inflammation? What are the functional roles of homeostatic chemokines and atypical, nonsignaling chemokine receptors in renal inflammation? And finally, what classes of chemokine antagonists are available to address these questions experimentally? Copyright (C) 2009 S. Karger AG, Basel