Potential therapeutic manipulations of the CXCR3 chemokine axis for the treatment of inflammatory fibrosing diseases

Chemokines play important roles in homeostasis and inflammatory processes. While their roles in leukocyte recruitment are well-appreciated, chemokines play additional roles in the body, including mediating or regulating angiogenesis, tumor metastasis and wound healing. In this opinion article, we focus on the role of CXCR3 and its ligands in fibrotic processes. We emphasize differences of the effects of each ligand, CXCL9, CXCL10 and CXCL11, on fibroblasts in different tissues of the body. We include discussions of differences in signaling pathways that may account for protective or pro-fibrotic effects of each ligand in different experimental models and ex vivo analysis of human tissues. Our goal is to highlight potential reasons why there are disparate findings in different models, and to suggest ways in which this chemokine axis could be manipulated for the treatment of fibrosis.