title: Toll-like receptors: their roles in bacterial recognition and respiratory infections.
abstract: Although respiratory infections cause significant morbidity and mortality throughout the world, the immunologic factors that mediate host susceptibility to these infections remain poorly understood. The lung contains a vast surface at the host-environment interface and acts as a crucial barrier to invading pathogens. The lung is equipped with specialized epithelial and hematopoietic cells, which express pattern recognition receptors that act as both sentinels and mediators of pulmonary innate immunity. Toll-like receptors (TLRs) mediate a particularly critical role in pathogen recognition and subsequent initiation of the host immune response. In this review, we will summarize current knowledge of TLRs and their bacterial ligands and explore their role in respiratory infections. Moreover, we will highlight recent advances in the role of TLRs in pulmonary infections from a human immunogenetics perspective.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine/Division of Allergy & Infections Diseases, University of Washington School of Medicine, 1959 NE Pacific Street, Seattle, WA 98195, USA. aprilkr@u.washington.edu
authors.forename: April Kaur
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Randhawa
authors.forename: Thomas R
authors.initials: TR
authors.lastname: Hawn
mesh_terms: D001419:Bacteria / Q000378:metabolism*; D001424:Bacterial Infections / Q000276:immunology / Q000382:microbiology; D006801:Humans; D012137:Respiratory System / Q000276:immunology / Q000378:metabolism; D012141:Respiratory Tract Infections / Q000276:immunology / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000382:microbiology; D051193:Toll-Like Receptors / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D051193:Toll-Like Receptors