title: Innate immunity to mycobacteria: vitamin D and autophagy.
abstract: Autophagy is an ancient mechanism of protein degradation and a novel antimicrobial strategy. With respect to host defences against mycobacteria, autophagy plays a crucial role in antimycobacterial resistance, and contributes to immune surveillance of intracellular pathogens and vaccine efficacy. Vitamin D3 contributes to host immune responses against Mycobacterium tuberculosis through LL-37/hCAP-18, which is the only cathelicidin identified to date in humans. In this review, we discuss recent advances in our understanding of host immune strategies against mycobacteria, including vitamin D-mediated innate immunity and autophagy activation. This review also addresses our current understanding regarding the autophagy connection to principal innate machinery, such as ubiquitin- or inflammasome-involved pathways. Integrated dialog between autophagy and innate immunity may contribute to adequate host immune defences against mycobacterial infection.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology, Chungnam National University School of Medicine, Jungku, Daejeon, Korea. hayoungj@cnu.ac.kr
authors.forename: Eun-Kyeong
authors.initials: EK
authors.lastname: Jo
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001343:Autophagy; D006801:Humans; D007113:Immunity, Innate; D008954:Models, Biological; D009169:Mycobacterium tuberculosis / Q000276:immunology*; D014376:Tuberculosis / Q000276:immunology; D014807:Vitamin D / Q000494:pharmacology*; D014815:Vitamins / Q000502:physiology
chemical_list: D014815:Vitamins; D014807:Vitamin D