Chemokine Receptors: A Structural Overview

To date, all mammalian chemokine receptors and chemokine-binding proteins belong to the seven-transmembrane (7TM)-spanning family of receptors, which are typically, although not exclusively, coupled to G proteins (1). The large G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) family comprises almost 1000 members in the human genome (2,3) accounting for in excess of 3% of transcribed sequences. This family is subdivided into the class A, B, C, and F/S families on the basis of shared motifs, and chemokine receptors specifically belong to the class A GPCR family. This review summarizes the current state of knowledge of chemokine receptor structure and discusses recent developments toward the determination of the full three-dimensional structure of these important receptors.