Conclusion and future perspective
In summary, the specific combination of CCL21 and CCR7 significantly promotes the activity of immune cells, induces immune cell homing and promotes immune cell migration and angiogenesis during the process of immunity and inflammation. The migration of immune cells is a crucial part of the autoimmune response. Accordingly, the pathological role of CCL21 and CCR7 has attracted more and more attention from domestic and foreign scholars in autoimmune diseases (Rizeq et al., 2020)(Figure 5). With the in-depth exploration of CCL21/CCR7 chemokine axis, it was found that CCL21 and CCR7 regulate the expression of downstream proteins through the activation of intracellular signaling pathways to promote the migration of immune cells to inflammatory and infectious sites, which participates in the occurrence and development of autoimmune diseases (McHugh, 2019). Therefore, understanding the signaling transduction mechanism of CCL21 and CCR7 in autoimmune diseases is essential for the discovery of potential diagnostic biomarkers and therapeutic targets, providing a deep foundation and new insights for the development of new drugs. Therefore, it is of great significance to elucidate the important role of CCL21/CCR7 chemokine axis in inflammatory response for reveal the pathological mechanism of autoimmune diseases and discovering new biomarkers and new drug targets.