The chemokine CCL6 promotes innate immunity via immune cell activation and recruitment.

Septic syndrome is a consequence of innate immune failure. Recent studies showed that the CC chemokine CCL6 enhanced antimicrobial immunity during experimental sepsis through an unknown mechanism. The present study demonstrates that transgenic CCL6 expression abolishes mortality in a septic peritonitis model via the modulation of resident peritoneal cell activation and, more importantly, through the recruitment of IFN-producing NK cells and killer dendritic cells into the peritoneum. Thus, CCL6 attenuates the immune failure during sepsis, in part, through a protective type 1-cytokine mediated mechanism.