Nagging Questions Take Toll on Researchers (1)- Mouse mutants pinpoint Gram-negative sepsis co-receptor

For this article Karen Young Kreeger interviewed Bruce Beutler, professor of immunology at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif. Data from the Web of Science (ISI, Philadelphia) show that this paper has been cited significantly more often than the average paper of the same type and age. A. Poltorak, X. He, I. Smirnova, M-Y. Liu, C. Van Huffel, X. Du, D. Birdwell, E. Alejos, M. Silva, C. Galanos, M. Freudenberg, P. Castagnoli, B. Layton, B. Beutler, "Defective LPS signaling in C3H/HeJ and C57BL/10ScCr mice: Mutations in Tlr4 gene," Science, 282:2085-8, 1998. (Cited in 275 papers) Infection by Gram-negative bacteria is no small matter: In the United States an estimated 20,000 people die each year due to septic shock from Gram-negative bacteria. The deadliness of this condition is partially due to a bacterial cell component called lipopolysaccharide (LPS), or endotoxin. When the human immune system encounters bacterial LPS, it ...