“Our findings help highlight the importance of the innate immune response in the recognition of specific pathogens.”

Recently, there has been a significant advance in understanding the receptors of the innate immune system. Specifically, the pattern recognition receptors known as toll-like receptors (TLRs) have been studied extensively. Therefore, one reason that this paper is highly cited is that it was the first description of a new TLR in the past few years. Second, our paper demonstrated how there could be a clear link between the expression pattern of a TLR and the pathogens that it recognizes—namely expression in the urinary tract epithelium, and recognition of uropathogenic E. coli. Third, we provided data that TLR11 recognizes a protein component of these bacteria. Prior to this study, TLR5 was the only TLR known to recognize a protein ligand. In general, it has been thought that proteins would not make good targets for TLR recognition because of their ability to rapidly evolve in the face of selective pressure. However, we now know that at least two mammalian TLRs can recognize protein ligands.

Our findings help highlight the importance of the innate immune response in the recognition of specific pathogens. Understanding how the innate immune response helps to tailor the adaptive immune response so that it is appropriate for a given organism will allow us to devise more effective immunization and treatment strategies.

This paper shows that in mice, the cells that line the urinary tract can specifically recognize the bacteria that cause urinary tract infections. Recognition of these bacteria in turn initiates an immune response that helps to prevent the spread of infection to the kidneys.

Our lab became interested in TLRs because of our long-term interest in NF-kappa B, which is a major target of TLR signaling.