The "Nucleotide-binding domain and Leucine-rich Repeat" (NLR) genes are a family of intracellular pattern recognition receptors (PRR) that are a critical component of the metazoan innate immune system, involved in both defense against pathogenic microorganisms and in beneficial interactions with symbionts. To investigate the origin and evolution of the NLR gene family, we characterized the full...

Innate immunity represents an important system with a variety of vital processes at the core of many diseases. In recent years, the central role of the Nod-like receptor (NLR) protein family became increasingly appreciated in innate immune responses. NLRs are classified as part of the signal transduction ATPases with numerous domains (STAND) clade within the AAA+ ATPase family. They typically f...

Plants have a sophisticated innate immune system with which they defend themselves against a myriad of pathogens. During the past two decades, work in a range of species has advanced our knowledge of the molecular and biochemical details of plant immunity. Many of these studies have focused on the action of nucleotide-binding domain/leucine-rich repeat (NB-LRR or NLR) immune receptors. NLR gene...

Genome-wide motif searches identified 1134 genes in the lettuce reference genome of cv. Salinas that are potentially involved in pathogen recognition, of which 385 were predicted to encode nucleotide binding-leucine rich repeat receptor (NLR) proteins. Using a maximum-likelihood approach, we grouped the NLRs into 25 multigene families and 17 singletons. Forty-one percent of these NLR-encoding g...

The nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain-like receptor (NLR) family of proteins is involved in the regulation of innate immune responses and cell death pathways. Some NLR family members promote the activation of proinflammatory caspases within multiprotein complexes, called inflammasomes. Recent studies analyzing mice deficient in various components of the inflammasome have provided insigh...

This study aimed to investigate whether single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of five NLR family genes (NOD1, NOD2, NLRP1, NLRP3 and CIITA) are associated with Behcet's disease (BD) in a Chinese Han population. The study was carried out in 950 BD patients and 1440 controls for 19 SNPs in the selected NLR genes. In the first-stage study, significantly decreased frequencies of the CIITA//rs12932...

Since Janeway (1) and Matzinger (2) put forward two distinct concepts of innate immune recognition, arguing that the driving force that initiates immune reponses is the recognition of microbial patterns or endogenous danger signals, respectively, we have acquired a tremendous wealth of knowledge of the protein families involved. Host-encoded pattern-recognition molecules (PRM) sense conservedmi...

NOD1 {nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain 1; NLRC [NOD-LRR (leucine-rich repeat) family with CARD (caspase recruitment domain) 1]} and NOD2 (NLRC2) are among the most prominent members of the NLR (NOD-LRR) family -proteins that contain nucleotide-binding NACHT domains and receptor-like LRR domains. With over 20 members identified in humans, NLRs represent important components of the mamma...