Isolation and characterization of LMC, a novel lymphocyte and monocyte chemoattractant human CC chemokine, with myelosuppressive activity

By searching the Expressed Sequence Tag (EST) data base, we identified a partial cDNA sequence encoding a novel human CC chemokine. The entire cDNA sequence was determined and revealed a CC chemokine whose mature protein consisted of 100 amino acids with predicted molecular weight of 11 kd. The chemokine preferantially chemoattracted lymphocytes and monocytes but not neutrophils. It was, therefore, named LMC (Lymphocyte and Monocyte Chemoattractant). LMC exhibited potent myelosuppressive activity, which was comparable to that of MIP-1α. We identified several bacterial artificial clones (BAG) containing the LMC gene along with two human CC chemokine subfamily members; leukotactin-1 (Lkn-1) and CKβ8-1/CKβ8. This data suggests that the LMC gene is located at human chromosome 17q which encompasses a human CC chemokine gene cluster.