Abstract
A NUMBER of leukocyte chemotactic factors of defined structure have been described. They include formyl-methionyl tripeptides (f-Met-Leu-Phe and related peptides) which attract neutrophils at concentrations as low as 1010—10−11 M (refs 1 and 2), the eosinophilotactic tetrapeptides Val-Gly-Sur-Glu and Ala-Gly-Ser-Glu (ECF-A) (ref. 3) and HETE; a 12-hydroxy-unsaturated fatty acid derivative of arachidonic acid4. All of these have in common a net negative charge and a hydrophobic moiety. The availability of chemotactically active molecules of known structure now allows structure–activity relationships to be examined, and preliminary evidence that f-Met peptides bind to a receptor on the leukocyte surface has been presented5,6. Leukocytes respond to a great many chemotactic factors of diverse structure and, in order to understand fully the binding sites involved, it will be useful to have as many defined chemotactic factors for study as possible. This paper reports the chemotactic activity of the succinylated form of the bee venom peptide, melittin.
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WILKINSON, P. Succinyl bee venom melittin is a leukocyte chemotactic factor. Nature 267, 713–714 (1977). https://doi.org/10.1038/267713a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/267713a0
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