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Polymorphisms at the innate immune receptor TLR2 are associated with Borrelia infection in a wild rodent population.

ABSTRACT: The discovery of the key role of Toll-like receptors (TLRs) in initiating innate immune responses and modulating adaptive immunity has revolutionized our understanding of vertebrate defence against pathogens. Yet, despite their central role in pathogen recognition and defence initiation, there is little information on how variation in TLRs influences disease susceptibility in natural populations. Here, we assessed the extent of naturally occurring polymorphisms at TLR2 in wild bank voles (Myodes glareolus) and tested for associations between TLR2 variants and infection with Borrelia afzelii, a common tick-transmitted pathogen in rodents and one of the causative agents of human Lyme disease. Bank voles in our population had 15 different TLR2 haplotypes (10 different haplotypes at the amino acid level), which grouped in three well-separated clusters. In a large-scale capture-mark-recapture study, we show that voles carrying TLR2 haplotypes of one particular cluster (TLR2c2) were almost three times less likely to be Borrelia infected than animals carrying other haplotypes. Moreover, neutrality tests suggested that TLR2 has been under positive selection. This is, to our knowledge, the first demonstration of an association between TLR polymorphism and parasitism in wildlife, and a striking example that genetic variation at innate immune receptors can have a large impact on host resistance.

SUBMITTER: Tschirren B

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3619520 | biostudies-literature | 2013 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Polymorphisms at the innate immune receptor TLR2 are associated with Borrelia infection in a wild rodent population.

Tschirren Barbara B Andersson Martin M Scherman Kristin K Westerdahl Helena H Mittl Peer R E PR Råberg Lars L

Proceedings. Biological sciences 20130403 1759

The discovery of the key role of Toll-like receptors (TLRs) in initiating innate immune responses and modulating adaptive immunity has revolutionized our understanding of vertebrate defence against pathogens. Yet, despite their central role in pathogen recognition and defence initiation, there is little information on how variation in TLRs influences disease susceptibility in natural populations. Here, we assessed the extent of naturally occurring polymorphisms at TLR2 in wild bank voles (Myodes ...[more]

PMID: 23554395

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Project description:Immune activation is critical to HIV infection and pathogenesis; however, our understanding of HIV innate immune activation remains incomplete. Recently we demonstrated that soluble TLR2 (sTLR2) physically inhibited HIV-induced NFκB activation and inflammation, as well as HIV-1 infection. In light of these findings, we hypothesized that HIV-1 structural proteins may serve as pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) for cellular TLR2 heterodimers. These studies made use of primary human T cells and TZMbl cells stably transformed to express TLR2 (TZMbl-2). Our results demonstrated that cells expressing TLR2 showed significantly increased proviral DNA compared to cells lacking TLR2, and mechanistically this may be due to a TLR2-mediated increased CCR5 expression. Importantly, we show that HIV-1 structural proteins, p17, p24, and gp41, act as viral PAMPs signaling through TLR2 and its heterodimers leading to significantly increased immune activation via the NFκB signaling pathway. Using co-immunoprecipitation and a dot blot method, we demonstrated direct protein interactions between these viral PAMPs and TLR2, while only p17 and gp41 bound to TLR1. Specifically, TLR2/1 heterodimer recognized p17 and gp41, while p24 lead to immune activation through TLR2/6. These results were confirmed using TLR2/1 siRNA knock down assays which ablated p17 and gp41-induced cellular activation and through studies of HEK293 cells expressing selected TLRs. Interestingly, our results show in the absence of TLR6, p24 bound to TLR2 and blocked p17 and gp41-induced activation, thus providing a novel mechanism by which HIV-1 can manipulate innate sensing. Taken together, our results identified, for the first time, novel HIV-1 PAMPs that play a role in TLR2-mediated cellular activation and increased proviral DNA. These findings have important implications for our fundamental understanding of HIV-1 immune activation and pathogenesis, as well as HIV-1 vaccine development.

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Polymorphisms at the innate immune receptor TLR2 are associated with Borrelia infection in a wild rodent population.

Publications

Polymorphisms at the innate immune receptor TLR2 are associated with Borrelia infection in a wild rodent population.

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