Summary Mannose‐binding lectin (MBL), collectin‐10, collectin‐11, and the ficolins (ficolin‐
1, ficolin‐2, and ficolin‐3) are soluble pattern recognition molecules in the lectin complement …

Pathogens have always been a major cause of human mortality, so they impose strong
selective pressure on the human genome. Data from population genetic studies, including …

Innate immunity is the earliest response to invading microbes and acts to contain infection in
the first minutes to hours of challenge. Unlike adaptive immunity that relies upon clonal …

Infectious diseases have been paramount among the threats to health and survival
throughout human evolutionary history. Natural selection is therefore expected to act …

Platelets play an essential role in maintaining homeostasis in the circulatory system after an
injury by forming a platelet thrombus, but they also occupy a central node in the …

Toll-like receptors (TLRs) and interleukin-1 receptors (IL-1Rs) have TIR intracellular
domains that engage two main signaling pathways, via the TIR-containing adaptors MyD88 …

Single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) technologies can be used to identify disease-
causing genes in humans and to understand the inter-individual variation in drug response …

Mannan-binding lectin (MBL) deficiency has been classified as a commonly occurring
immune disorder, affecting approximately 30% of the human population. MBL, being part of …

For almost any given human-tropic virus, bacterium, fungus, or parasite, the clinical outcome
of primary infection is enormously variable, ranging from asymptomatic to lethal infection …

The innate immune system is the first line of host defense against infection and is comprised
of humoral and cellular mechanisms that recognize potential pathogens within minutes or …