Editorial: History of Chemoattractant Research.

Abstract

This Research Topic entitled “History of Chemoattractant Research” collects a series of personal stories by numerous experts in the field of chemoattractant research. The individual contributions portray some key discoveries that helped to transform cell migration research into a global playing field within immunology (and beyond). Early progress had a profound effect on both academia and industry. Today, numerous academic laboratories are fully engaged in compiling a detailed road map describing the highly complex network of immune and tissue cells that respond to chemoattractants. Industrial research, on the other hand, centers on drugs that interfere with immune cell traffic in inflammatory diseases and cancer. By definition, chemoattractants include early (“classical”) chemoattractants of variable chemical composition and the large family of chemokines (chemotactic cytokines) that greatly outnumber the former compounds. As inferred from their name, all chemoattractants share the ability to induce cell migration (chemotaxis) via binding to a single class of G-protein-coupled receptors on target cells. Chemoattractant research was originally viewed as a specialty subject within cell biology. However, due to the increasing number of chemoattractants being discovered and their effect on every type of immune cells distributed throughout our body, it became quickly clear that chemoattractants constitute essential regulators of all aspects in immunity. Defects in the chemoattractant system are frequently associated with immunodeficiencies or autoimmunity/chronic diseases. We now know that the complexity of the chemokine and classical chemoattractant system perfectly mirrors the multitude of immune cells distinguished by lineage relationship, function, and tissue location.