A specific CCR3 chemokine receptor antagonist inhibits both early and late phase allergic inflammation in the conjunctiva.

Allergic inflammation manifests as one of a number of diseases, including asthma, dermatitis, food allergy, vernal keratoconjunctivitis, and systemic anaphylaxis. Together these diseases affect nearly 25% of the Western world and are a leading health-care problem. The diseases are often biphasic, with an early phase driven primarily by mast cell degranulation and a late phase characterized by leukocyte recruitment.

The integrin alphavbeta3 is a receptor for the latency-associated peptides of transforming growth factors beta1 and beta3.

The integrins alpha(v)beta(1), alpha(v)beta(5), alpha(v)beta(6) and alpha(v)beta(8) have all recently been shown to interact with the RGD motif of the latency-associated peptide (LAPbeta(1)) of transforming growth factor beta(1) (TGFbeta(1)), with binding to alpha(v)beta(6) and alpha(v)beta(8) leading to TGFbeta(1) activation. Previously it has been suggested that the remaining alpha(v) integrin, alpha(v)beta(3,) does not interact with LAPbeta(1). However, here we show clearly that alpha(v)beta(3) does indeed interact with the LAPbeta(1) RGD motif.