The Involvement of Chemokines and Receptors in Progression of Cerebral Malaria: The Story So Far

Malaria has long been considered as disease associated with innate and adaptive immune response. The innate immune response, in particular, has widely been studied and implicated to the lethality in malaria. A sequence of immune events contributes to the cerebral manifestation commonly known as cerebral malaria (CM). CM is morbid and mostly irreversible condition which is accompanied by a haywire immune response that destroys the cerebro-protective mechanism of the host. Variety of immune components such as lymphocytes, mono/mac cells, cytokines, chemokines and their receptors have been attributed to this phenomenon. In this review we have attempted to highlight the role of chemokines and their receptors. Using evidences from ECM, we advocate that chemokine receptor such as CCR1, CCR2, CCR5 and CXCR3 contribute towards the pathogenesis. Also the set of chemokines binding to these receptors were over-expressed in CM. Overexpression results in the T Cell and monocyte activation and consequently migration across the blood brain barrier to cause the damage.