3-5 Mammalian Toll-like receptors are activated by many different pathogen-associated molecular patterns.
There are 10 expressed TLR genes in humans and 12 in mice. Each TLR is devoted to recognizing a distinct set of molecular patterns that are essentially not found in healthy vertebrate cells. Initially called pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs), these molecules are general components of both pathogenic and nonpathogenic microorganisms, and so are sometimes called microbial-associated molecular patterns, or MAMPs. Between them, the mammalian TLRs recognize molecules characteristic of Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria, fungi, and viruses. Among these, the lipoteichoic acids of Gram-positive bacterial cell walls and the lipopolysaccharide (LPS) of the outer membrane of Gram-negative bacteria (see Fig. 2.9) are particularly important in the recognition of bacteria by the innate immune system, and are recognized by TLRs. Other microbial components also have a repetitive structure. Bacterial flagella are made of a repeated flagellin subunit, and bacterial DNA has abundant repeats of unmethylated CpG dinucleotides (which are often methylated in mammalian DNA). In many viral infections, a double-stranded RNA intermediate is part of the viral life cycle, and frequently the viral RNA contains modifications that can be used to distinguish it from normal host RNA species.
The mammalian TLRs and their known microbial ligands are listed in Fig. 3.10. Because there are relatively few TLR genes, the TLRs have limited specificity compared with the antigen receptors of the adaptive immune system. However, they can recognize elements of most pathogenic microbes and are expressed by many types of cells, including macrophages, dendritic cells, B cells, stromal cells, and certain epithelial cells, enabling the initiation of antimicrobial responses in many tissues.
TLRs are sensors for microbes present in extracellular spaces. Some mammalian TLRs are cell-surface receptors similar to Drosophila Toll, but others are located intracellularly in the membranes of endosomes, where they detect pathogens or their components that have been taken into cells by phagocytosis, receptor-mediated endocytosis, or macropinocytosis (Fig. 3.11). TLRs are single-pass transmembrane proteins with an extracellular region composed of 18–25 copies of a leucine-rich repeat (LRR). Each LLR of a TLR protein is composed of around 20–25 amino acids, and multiple LRRs create a horseshoe-shaped protein scaffold that is adaptable for ligand binding and recognition on both the outer (convex) and inner (concave) surfaces. Signaling by mammalian TLRs is activated when binding of a ligand induces formation of a dimer, or induces conformational changes in a preformed TLR dimer. All mammalian TLR proteins have in their cytoplasmic tail a TIR (for Toll–IL-1 receptor) domain, which interacts with other TIR-type domains, usually in other signaling molecules, and is also found in the cytoplasmic tail of the receptor for the cytokine interleukin-1β(IL-1β). For years after the discovery of the mammalian TLRs it was not known whether they made direct contact with microbial products or whether they sensed the presence of microbes by some indirect means. Drosophila Toll, for example, does not recognize pathogen products directly, but instead it is activated when it binds a cleaved version of a self protein, Spätzle. Drosophila has other direct pathogen-recognition molecules, and these trigger the proteolytic cascade that ends in the cleavage
Pattern recognition by cells of the innate immune system.