Quick question about TLR 4

[Arkteryx]

Going through my immunology lecture, professor has a few slides on TLRs. Some basic info categorizes them (cell surface and endosomal)...my question is: He has a third slide on TLR 4 specifically, and I was curious if this was an especially important receptor, or a favorite of his personally, or what?

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[shisong]

just know general TLR. no need to know #

 

[Arkteryx]

Thanks!

 

[MightBeACylon439]

Learn as much as your professor wants you to learn (if he has an entire slide dedicated to TLR4...chances are HE/SHE thinks it's important and potentially testable), that much is school specific.

For long term retention (board relevancy) look up what it says in FA and know that.

 

[Goro]

Going through my immunology lecture, professor has a few slides on TLRs. Some basic info categorizes them (cell surface and endosomal)...my question is: He has a third slide on TLR 4 specifically, and I was curious if this was an especially important receptor, or a favorite of his personally, or what?

Toll-like receptor 4 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the TLR4 gene. TLR4 is a transmembrane protein, member of the toll-like receptor family, which belongs to the pattern recognition receptor (PRR) family. Its activation leads to an intracellular signaling pathway NF-κB and inflammatory cytokine production which is responsible for activating the innate immune system.[3] It is most well known for recognizing lipopolysaccharide (LPS), a component present in many Gram-negative bacteria (e.g. Neisseria spp.) and select Gram-positive bacteria.

Even I know this, and I an not a microbiologist. LPS bad. Hence, I suspect this is why your professor had this on the slide. But it sure smells of minutiae.

I did some transfections for a colleague last week, as she wanted to see if her constructs would express her favorite gene. She gave me some miniprpep DNA.

I pointed out that endotoxin would probably hurt the cells.

Her: No, I've had good luck transfecting miniprep DNA. And these cells don't have TLR4.
Me: Okaaaay.

Sure enough...massive cell death. It was still a win... enough cells survived to express the protein. But I told her that if she wants a western done on the lysates, she'd better use some maxiprep DNA.