certain aspects of alcohol reward and aversion in mice (Blednov et al., 2011). Our finding that chemokine receptor CXCR4 is downregulated in brain of human alcoholics and is the most significantly miRNA-over-targeted transcript (Lewohl et al., 2011) supports a role for miRNAs in the regulation of LPS-activated TLR4-transduced immune signaling in chronic alcoholics. CXCR4 has also being recently implicated in opiate-induced hypernociception (White and Wilson, 2010) and polymorphisms in SDF1 (the CXCR4 ligand) associated with several phenotypes, including alcohol consumption (Xiao et al., 2008).
