WKYMVm Works by Targeting Immune Cells

Yuting Yang; Jin Zhao; Chunmeng Jiang; Yue Zhang; Mei Han; Hui Liu

doi:10.2147/JIR.S390394

WKYMVm Works by Targeting Immune Cells

J Inflamm Res. 2023 Jan 6:16:45-55. doi: 10.2147/JIR.S390394. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Yuting Yang^#¹, Jin Zhao^#², Chunmeng Jiang¹, Yue Zhang¹, Mei Han¹, Hui Liu¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Gastroenterology, Second Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian, Liaoning, 116000, People's Republic of China.
² Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Air Force Medical Center, PLA, Beijing, 100000, People's Republic of China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

WKYMVm (Trp-Lys-Tyr-Met-Val-D-Met) is a synthetic hexapeptide identified as a potent agonist of FPRs. FPRs are widely expressed on the cell membrane of immune cells. Therefore, WKYMVm participates in the regulation of immune cells by activating FPRs, and plays a therapeutic role in infections, tumors, autoimmune diseases and so on. WKYMVm can promote the chemotactic migration, increase the bactericidal activity of neutrophils and monocytes. WKYMVm also regulates the number and polarization of macrophages, affects the maturation of DCs and the differentiation of T cells, and promotes the activation and chemotaxis of NK cells. These functions make WKYMVm a candidate drug for immunotherapy. In this paper, we summarize the regulatory effects and underlying mechanisms of WKYMVm on six immune cells (neutrophils, monocytes, macrophages, DCs, T cells and NK cells) to increase comprehensive understanding and promote further research on WKYMVm.

Keywords: FPRs; WKYMVm; chemotaxis; immune cells; polarization.

Publication types

Review

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Medical Science Research Project of Dalian (No. 2112015), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 82100620) and the Doctoral Startup Research Fund of Liaoning Province (2021-BS-218).