Plant lectins and Toll-like receptors: implications for therapy of microbial infections

Several plant lectins are known as potent immunomodulatory agents, and they are applied in different experimental models of infection (Afonso-Cardoso et al., 2011; Oliveira et al., 2013). Recent research has characterized these proteins as potential agonists of Toll-like receptors (TLRs or TLR), a family of mammalian homologs of Drosophila Toll protein involved in the detection of microbes and initiating inflammatory responses (O’Neill et al., 2013). In this opinion article, we highlighted some studies of plant lectins as modulators or agonists of TLRs in order to stimulate research interest in this fascinating area and promote knowledge sharing and scientific collaboration.