Journal of Biological Chemistry
Volume 276, Issue 37, 14 September 2001, Pages 34686-34694
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MOLECULAR BASIS OF CELL AND DEVELOPMENTAL BIOLOGY
Peptidoglycan Recognition Proteins: A NOVEL FAMILY OF FOUR HUMAN INNATE IMMUNITY PATTERN RECOGNITION MOLECULES*

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The innate immune system recognizes microorganisms through a series of pattern recognition receptors that are highly conserved in evolution. Insects have a family of 12 peptidoglycan recognition proteins (PGRPs) that recognize peptidoglycan, a ubiquitous component of bacterial cell walls. We report cloning of three novel human PGRPs (PGRP-L, PGRP-Iα, and PGRP-Iβ) that together with the previously cloned PGRP-S, define a new family of human pattern recognition molecules. PGRP-L, PGRP-Iα, and PGRP-Iβ have 576, 341, and 373 amino acids coded by five, seven, and eight exons on chromosomes 19 and 1, and they all have two predicted transmembrane domains. All mammalian and insect PGRPs have at least three highly conserved C-terminal PGRP domains located either in the extracellular or in the cytoplasmic (or in both) portions of the molecules. PGRP-L is expressed in liver, PGRP-Iα and PGRP-Iβ in esophagus (and to a lesser extent in tonsils and thymus), and PGRP-S in bone marrow (and to a lesser extent in neutrophils and fetal liver). All four human PGRPs bind peptidoglycan and Gram-positive bacteria. Thus, these PGRPs may play a role in recognition of bacteria in these organs.

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Published, JBC Papers in Press, July 18, 2001, DOI 10.1074/jbc.M105566200

*

This work was supported by United States Public Health Service Grant AI2879 from National Institutes of Health (to R. D.).The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. The article must therefore be hereby marked “advertisement” in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.

The nucleotide sequence(s) reported in this paper has been submitted to the GenBank™/EMBL Data Bank with accession number(s) AF384856, AY035376, and AY035377.

These authors contributed equally to this work.

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Present address: Infectious Disease Research Institute, Seattle, WA 98104.