Chapter 13. Characterizing proteolytic processing of chemokines by mass spectrometry, biochemistry, neo-epitope antibodies and functional assays.

The nature, sequence, and length of the carboxy and amino termini of chemokines are important determinants of chemokine function, being essential for both efficient haptotactic gradient formation and cognate receptor activation events of these chemotactic cytokines. Chemokines are susceptible to proteolytic cleavage in both of these regions, which usually results in dramatic changes to the chemokine bioactivity. Herein we provide techniques to assess, detect, and characterize protease activity on chemokines and the biologic outcomes.