Macrophages play diverse roles including but not limited to homeostatic clearance, detection of invading pathogens and induction of the adaptive immune response. Since their discovery, it has become clear that Toll-like receptors (TLRs) can play a major role in these macrophage functions. This review will describe the TLRs, their signalling pathways and their role in macrophage function.

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Conclusions Immune profiling of the TIL infiltrate in human breast carcinoma using high-sensitivity detection and analysis techniques showed predominance of CD3 cells, being ab-TCR, CD4 T cells of mainly memory phenotype. Importantly, these findings were strongly predictive of 5and 10-year survival. This indicates the real possibility that TIL infiltration in breast cancer might be open to immu...

The use of toll-like receptor agonists in immunotherapy is a new approach in the prevention of immunosuppression during fatal Leishmania parasite infection. The objective of such immunotherapy is to activate specific cell-mediated immune responses, macrophage activation and antigen-responsive inflammation, to kill intracellular amastigotes. Toll-like receptor agonist-based treatment in immunoco...

Toll-like receptors (TLR) recognize the pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) and regulate the subsequent immune responses in mammals. We have so far succeeded in finding the 11 types of TLR genes from Japanese flounder (Paralichthys olivaceus). TLR genes have also been found in the genomes of fugu (Takifugu rubripes) and zebrafish (Danio rerio). However, only limited information is kn...

Autophagy is a newly recognized innate defense mechanism, acting as a cell-autonomous system for elimination of intracellular pathogens. The signals and signalling pathways inducing autophagy in response to pathogen invasion are presently not known. Here we show that autophagy is controlled by recognizing conserved pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs). We screened a PAMP library for e...

The innate immune system senses invading microorganisms by a phylogenetically conserved family of proteins PRRs of which TLRs are ones of the most important. There are at least 10 different TLRs in humans and 11 in mice. They have in the course of evolution specialized for the recognition of conserved structures among microorganisms called PAMPs. Activation of TLRs results in induction of innat...