A review on the natural mediators of inflammatory leucotaxis

Abstract

The molecular mechanisms of leucotaxis in several types of cutaneous inflammation (including active or reversed passive Arthus reaction in rabbit and rat, thermal injury in rabbit, DNP-ascaris extract-induced hypersensitivity reaction in guinea pig and PPD-induced delayed hypersensitivity reaction in guinea pig) were discussed. The chemotactic factors listed here were separated from the inflamed sites and characterized biologically or physicochemically. These agents seemed to satisfy many or some of the criteria necessary for the mediators of inflammatory leucotaxis; they included three types of neutrophil chemotactic factors, of macrophage chemotactic factors and of eosinophil chemotactic factors, or four types of lymphocyte chemotactic factors. Such heterogeneity of chemotactic factors for each leucocyte migration suggested the presence of their respective subpopulations with different biological functions; there lies a new field in the study on the functional specificity of these inflammatory chemotactic factors.