Endothelin (ET)-1 has been detected in many inflammatory pathologies, including rheumatoid arthritic patients, asthma, and ischemic-reperfusion injury. In this study, we have investigated the effect of a panel of different ET-1 antagonists displaying different selectivities for the receptors in a murine model of experimental inflammatory peritonitis. Systemic treatment of mice with the ETA antagonist C 33 H 44 N 6 O 5 , N-[N-[-N(hexahydro-1H-azepin- all these effects occurred without altering peripheral blood cell counts. Release of the CXC chemokine KC was significantly reduced by the FR139317 and PD145065 but not by BQ-788. Evaluation of the therapeutic potential of these antagonists showed that PD145065 inhibited neutrophil migration and KC release, whereas the others caused a nonsignificant reduction in these parameters. Parameters of endothelial cell activation showed that urate-stimulated interleukin-1 release was inhibited by BQ-788 and PD145065 but not by FR139317, whereas ET-1 was only inhibited by the mixed antagonist. A different scenario was observed with respect to release of the CXC chemokine KC with FR139317 and PD145065 being effective, whereas with a marker of polymorphonuclear activation the ETA and mixed antagonist inhibited adhesion molecule expression. These data show that ET-1 antagonists elicit different mechanisms of actions in the way they display their antimigratory effects in a murine model of monosodium urate crystal peritonitis.Monosodium urate (MSU) crystal deposition into the joint articular space is responsible for the inflammatory condition known as gouty arthritis (McCarty et al., 1962). Edema and erythema of the joints with severe pain and infiltration of polymorphonuclear (PMN) leukocytes are associated with this pathology (Dieppe et al., 1979;Terkeltaub, 1992). MSU crystals cause the synthesis of CXC chemokines selective for PMN, such as murine KC (Getting et al., 1997) but not that of a CC chemokine selective for monocytes, such as monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (Hachicha et al., 1995), a scenario that will lead to PMN but not monocyte migration. In addition, MSU crystal activation of intra-articular mononuclear phagocytes also induces secretion of interleukin-8 (Terkeltaub et al., 1991). All these studies provide further evidence that gouty arthritis is mainly a PMN-driven pathology. Murine KC shows a 60% homology to human growth-related oncogene-␣, and this chemokine has been shown to be selective for the human CXCR2. In mice, only the CXCR2 exists, whereas in humans both CXCR2 and CXCR1 are present. KC binds to the murine CXCR2, and this has been shown to play a major role in neutrophil chemotaxis. Studies have shown that mice lacking the CXCR2 have fewer neutrophils infil-