What is VLA-4?
Very Late Antigen 4 is a member of a class of vascular cell adhesion molecules that play a critical role in the inflammatory cascade. VLA-4 acts to produce firm attachment of leukocytes to the vessel wall prior to leukocyte migration into inflamed tissue. While this is a normal physiologic process, interrupting it may provide therapeutic advantages when abnormal inflammatory responses form the mechanism responsible for chronic diseases, for example in asthma.