Thrombin has been shown to play a key role in lung diseases such as pulmonary fibrosis via the induction of fibrotic cytokine- chemokine (CC motif) ligand-2 (CCL2) expression.
Studies in patients and experimental animals provide compelling evidence that increased CCL2 expression plays an important role in the development of fibroproliferative lung disease.
CCL2 alone is associated with severity of TB, possibly due to increased systemic inflammation found in severe disseminated TB or due to increased monocyte infiltration to lung parenchyma in pulmonary disease.
Increased monocyte chemoattractant protein 1 levels were associated with pulmonary disease, occurred despite BCG vaccination, and were not associated with a polymorphism in the monocyte chemoattractant protein 1 promoter.
These data demonstrate that doxycycline modulates MCP-1 production and suggest that doxycycline may provide a new anti-inflammatory therapy for chronic lung diseases.