CCL2 and atherosclerosis: The recruitment of monocytes to the activated endothelium in response to chemokines such as MCP-1 is a critical early step in the development of atherosclerosis [5] and these actions were confirmed in our system as a significant 6.84-fold induction (p<0.001) in monocyte recruitment in cells treated with MCP-1 alone was observed when compared to the vehicle control (Fig 3).