Viral Chemokine Receptors

Viral Chemokine Receptors

When my lab sequenced the first chemokine receptors CXCR2 and CCR1 in 1991, the top BLAST hit for CCR1 was open reading frame (ORF) US28 of human cytomegalovirus (HCMV), indicating an obvious common ancestor and a possible example of gene piracy. Pox virologists had already identified virally encoded TNF and IFN-γ binding proteins, copied from the host and redeployed as cytokine scavengers and ...

Chemokines and Chemokine Receptors during Viral Infections in Man

Evolutionary Analysis of Functional Divergence among Chemokine Receptors, Decoy Receptors, and Viral Receptors

Chemokine receptors (CKRs) function in the inflammatory response and in vertebrate homeostasis. Decoy and viral receptors are two types of CKR homologs with modified functions from those of the typical CKRs. The decoy receptors are able to bind ligands without signaling. On the other hand, the viral receptors show constitutive signaling without ligands. We examined the sites related to the func...

A viral conspiracy: hijacking the chemokine system through virally encoded pirated chemokine receptors.

Several herpesviruses and poxviruses contain genes encoding for G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) proteins that are expressed on the surface of infected host cells and/or the viral envelope. Most of these membrane-associated proteins display highest homology to the subfamily of chemokine receptors known to play a key role in the immune system. Virally encoded chemokine receptors have been modif...

Chemokine receptors.

Chemokines mediate their multiple effects by binding to a variety of specific receptors, that comprise a subfamily of rhodopsin-like, 7-transmembrane domain receptors, coupled to G proteins. Some of these receptors serve as coreceptors for HIV, some of them could be expressed as markers for T lymphocyte functional differentiation. This review aims at summarising data on chemokine receptors, the...