The Role of CXCR3 in Neurological Diseases

Zhou, Ya-Qun; Liu, Dai-Qiang; Chen, Shu-Ping; Sun, Jia; Zhou, Xue-Rong; Xing, Cui; Ye, Da-Wei; Tian, Yu-Ke

Bipolar disorder (BD) is a severe disorder with high prevalence that affect mood and cognitive functions, and its pathophysiology remain largely unknown [97] . Emerging lines of evidence has shown an association of BD with the immune system [98] [99] [100] [101] . Brietzke et al. [102] first examined serum chemokine levels in 30 BD patients and to compare these results with those obtained with 30 healthy subjects. They found that the serum levels of CXCL10 were increased and CCL24 levels were decreased in BD patients in contrast with controls, suggesting an association between BD and changes in chemokine level. It is worth mentioning that CCL24 is an eotaxin, which not only binds CCR3 and recruit eosinophils and Th2 cells, but also act as an antagonist of CXCR3 [103, 104] . Barbosa et al. [17] further investigated the plasma levels of chemokines in 70 BD patients in different neuropsychiatry states (35 in euthymia and 35 in mania) compared with 50 healthy controls. Their results showed that BD patients had increased plasma levels of CXCL11, CCL24, CXCL10, and decreased plasma levels of CXCL8 in contrast with healthy controls. Moreover, these chemokines levels were not significantly different between BD patients in euthymia and in mania. Furthermore, the logistic regression stressed the main effect of increased plasma levels of CXCL10 and decreased plasma levels of CXCL8 to BD. These studies indicate that CXCL10, CXCL11 and their receptor CXCR3 should be further investigated with regard to their potential role as longstanding markers of BD.