This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Citing articles on ISI (1)  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal  Topic Collections  • Surgical Physiology, Other  • Review  • Alert me on articles by topic  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Laszlo Romics, Jr, MD, PhD, MRCS; Gyongyi Szabo, MD, PhD; John Calvin Coffey, PhD, AFRCSI; Jiang Huai Wang, PhD; Henry Paul Redmond, MCh, FRCSI

Arch Surg. 2006;141:595-601.

Objective  To outline the emerging significance of Toll-like receptor (TLR) signaling pathways in surgical diseases.

Data Sources  A systematic review of the literature was undertaken by searching the MEDLINE database for the period 1966 to 2005 without language restriction.

Study Selection  Original or review articles that described experimental data on the activation of TLR signaling pathways in surgically relevant diseases were selected for inclusion in this review.

Data Extraction  Data were obtained from peer-reviewed articles and references.

Data Synthesis  The role of TLRs in the recognition of pathogens renders them a key figure in the activation of both innate and adaptive immune responses during sepsis. However, emerging evidence points to fundamentally important roles in ulcerative colitis, Crohn disease, and Helicobacter pylori infection in the gastrointestinal tract and in the development of atherosclerotic plaques in the cardiovascular system. Furthermore, recent studies suggest that the regulation of the TLR pathway fulfills a central role in anticancer immunotherapy and in organ rejection after transplantation.

Conclusion  Given the clinical significance of TLR pathways, the targeting of individual molecular components is likely to offer a broad range of future therapeutic modalities.

Author Affiliations: Department of Surgery, Cork University Hospital, National University of Ireland, Cork (Drs Romics, Coffey, Wang, and Redmond); and Department of Medicine, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester (Dr Szabo).

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati     What's this?

THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES

Members of the Toll-Like Receptor Family of Innate Immunity Pattern-Recognition Receptors Are Abundant in the Male Rat Reproductive Tract
Palladino et al.
Biol. Reprod. 2007;76:958-964.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT