Cloning and expression of chemokine receptor CXCR4 in eukaryotic cells CHO, HEK293 and BHK21

Chemokines and their receptors are now under intensive investigation from different points of view: theoretically, to understand "how they work", and practically, to discover methods to affect or to force cellular processes into organisms in the intended direction. Evidence gathered during recent years suggests an important role for chemokines in normal cell proliferation, migration, intracellular communication, but what is of greater interest is their number of pathophysiological processes, such as chronic and acute inflammation, infection diseases, modulation of angiogenesis, tumour growth and spread. Chemokines have been also in several brain areas, where ligand-receptor systems can seriously alter the action of neuronally active pharmacological agents. Our interest is focused on the receptor/ligand pair CXCR4 / CXCL12 (SDF-1). We attempted the overexpression of this receptor into several eukaryotic cell lines for detailed interaction studies of receptor CXCR4 with ligands that were virus-like particles-based analogs of its only known natural ligand SDF-1 or stromal cell derived factor. This study evaluates the expression of CXCR4 into cells CHO, HEK293 and BHK21 with the idea of developing a handy "instrument" for further investigations.