CCL17 in pan-vascular diseases: current research advances

Pan-vascular diseases comprise a spectrum of atherosclerosis-driven vascular disorders that involve multiple vital organs, including the heart, brain, kidneys, and peripheral circulation. Despite being distributed across different clinical specialties due to increasing medical subspecialization, conditions such as coronary artery disease, ischemic stroke, and peripheral artery disease are interconnected manifestations of a unified, systemic vascular pathology. This conceptual shift highlights the need to consider these disorders within an integrated pan-vascular framework rather than as isolated clinical entities. Inflammation is a central driver in pan-vascular pathogenesis, accelerating atherosclerosis and increasing cardiovascular event risk. In the inflammatory cascade of pan-vascular diseases, chemokines play a pivotal role as regulators, facilitating the recruitment and activation of immune cells. C-C motif chemokine ligand 17 (CCL17) is essential for T cell development in the thymus. It binds to the C-C chemokine receptor 4 (CCR4) and exhibits chemotactic activity towards T lymphocytes, mainly T helper 2 (Th2) cells and regulatory T cells. This review summarizes the biological properties of CCL17, its mechanistic roles in pan-vascular pathologies, and its clinical translational potential as a biomarker and therapeutic target.