Nagging Questions Take Toll on Researchers (2)- TLRs essential for immune response against pathogens

For this article Karen Young Kreeger interviewed Holger Wesche, scientist at Tularik Inc. in South San Francisco, 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. C.J. Kirschning, H. Wesche, T.M. Ayres, M. Rothe, "Human toll-like receptor 2 confers responsiveness to bacterial lipopolysaccharide," Journal of Experimental Medicine, 188:2091-7, 1998. (Cited in 173 papers) For decades researchers have known that lipopolysaccharides, or LPS, a major component of the cell walls of Gram-negative bacteria, are an important part of the pathology of septic shock in humans. The immune system responds to LPS exposure by activating such pro-inflammatory molecules as the transcription factor NF-* B. "One way companies are trying to come up with therapies to combat sepsis is to explore the signal transduction cascades in immune cells initiated by bacterial cell wall ...