Toll-like receptor polymorphisms, inflammatory and infectious diseases, allergies, and cancer.

ABSTRACT: Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are germ-line-encoded innate immune sensors that recognize conserved microbial structures and host alarmins and signal expression of MHC proteins, costimulatory molecules, and inflammatory mediators by macrophages, neutrophils, dendritic cells, and other cell types. These processes activate immediate and early mechanisms of innate host defense, as well as initiate and orchestrate adaptive immune responses. Several single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within the TLR genes have been associated with altered susceptibility to infectious, inflammatory, and allergic diseases, and have been found to play a role in tumorigenesis. Critical advances in our understanding of innate immune functions and genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have uncovered complex interacti

SUBMITTER: Medvedev AE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3760066 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature