Immune sensor TLR8 is crucial for human immune defence
2020
Universitätsklinium Bonn, Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Clinical Pharmacology, Bonn, Germany
The activation of the immune sensor TLR8 (Toll-like receptor 8) plays an important role in the human immune defence. That was recently discovered since TLR8 is not active in mice and its crucial role has therefore long been neglected. TLR8 reacts to a broad range of pathogenic RNAs from viruses, bacteria and protozoa. If the gene coding for TLR8 is switched off, the cells no longer recognise bacterial RNA, so that tit plays a crucial role in immune defence. The RNases T1 and 2 were also identified. These break down foreign RNA into a form in which TLR8 can recognise and render it harmless; without their activity, TLR8 does not detect foreign RNA. These interactions were demonstrated using tumor cell lines as well as human cells from patients who have an RNaseT2 gene defect. Based on these findings, new vaccines against infections or immune therapies against cancer could be developed.
Immune sensing of synthetic, bacterial, and protozoan RNA by Toll-like receptor 8 requires coordinated processing by RNase T2 and RNase 2
Eva Bartok
Added on: 05-27-2020
[1] https://www.cell.com/immunity/pdf/S1074-7613(20)30122-9.pdf?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS1074761320301229%3Fshowall%3Dtrue
