The Toll gene in Drosophila pattern formation

Toll-like receptors (TLRs) play a crucial role in innate immunity in animals. Their discovery was rewarded a Nobel Prize to Jules Hoffmann and Bruce Beutler in 2011. The name Toll stems from a Drosophila mutant that was isolated in 1980 by Eric Wieschaus and myself as a byproduct of our screen for segmentation genes in Drosophila for which we received the Nobel Prize in 1995. It was named Toll due to its amazing dominant phenotype displayed in embryos from Toll/+ females. The analysis of Toll by Kathryn Anderson in my laboratory in Tübingen and subsequently in her own laboratory in Berkeley singled out Toll as a central component of the complex pathway regulating dorsoventral polarity and pattern of the Drosophila embryo. The Drosophila Toll story provides a striking example for the value of curiosity-driven research in providing fundamental insights that later gain strong impact on applied medical research.