title: Structural biology of the Toll-like receptor family.
abstract: Innate immune receptors respond to common structural patterns in microbial molecules and are called pattern recognition receptors. Toll-like receptors (TLRs) play critical roles in the innate immune system by recognizing microbial lipids, carbohydrates, nucleic acids, and proteins. Precise definition of the ligand "pattern" of TLRs has been difficult to determine primarily owing to a lack of high-resolution structures. Recently, the structures of several TLR-ligand complexes and the intracellular signaling domains have been determined by X-ray crystallography. This new structural information, combined with extensive biochemical and immunological data accumulated over decades, sheds new light on ligand-recognition and -activation mechanisms. In this review, we summarize the TLR structures and discuss proposed ligand-recognition and -activation mechanisms.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejon 305-701, Korea.
authors.forename: Jin Young
authors.initials: JY
authors.lastname: Kang
authors.forename: Jie-Oh
authors.initials: JO
authors.lastname: Lee
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001665:Binding Sites; D018360:Crystallography, X-Ray; D006801:Humans; D007113:Immunity, Innate; D008024:Ligands; D008070:Lipopolysaccharides / Q000276:immunology; D051218:Lymphocyte Antigen 96 / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology; D008958:Models, Molecular; D010802:Phylogeny; D011487:Protein Conformation; D055503:Protein Multimerization; D051193:Toll-Like Receptors / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology
chemical_list: D008024:Ligands; D008070:Lipopolysaccharides; D051218:Lymphocyte Antigen 96; D051193:Toll-Like Receptors