This article is part of the supplement: Proceedings of the 6th Workshop on Animal Models of Asthma

Review

Modulation of asthma and allergy by addressing toll-like receptor 2

Barbara Fuchs and Armin Braun

Department of Immunology, Allergology and Immunotoxicology, Fraunhofer Institute of Toxicology and Experimental Medicine, Nikolai-Fuchs-Str. 1, 30625 Hannover, Germany

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Journal of Occupational Medicine and Toxicology 2008, 3(Suppl 1):S5doi:10.1186/1745-6673-3-S1-S5

Published:	27 February 2008

Abstract

Toll-like receptors play an important role in innate and adaptive immunity and in balancing immune responses with tolerance. TLR2 is related to protection against allergies and allergic asthma by sensing pathogen associated patterns as lipoproteins and lipopeptides. A constant Th1 triggering is thought to prevent Th2 related disorders.

TLR2 is expressed on a variety of cells, both structural as well as immune cells. Importantly, TLR2 is also expressed on dendritic cells, which are thought to be one of the key players of initiating and maintaining immune responses. Therefore, TLR2 on dendritic cells is a good target for modulating immunity either to Th1 or Th2 responses, or induction of tolerance.

TLR2 agonists show high immunomodulatory and adjuvantic capacity. This makes TLR2 agonisation a promising approach for pharmaceutical intervention of allergic disorders.