Updates on Toll-Like Receptor 10 Research

Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are transmembrane proteins that share sequence similarity and biological function as they are responsible for the innate immune response to exogenous or endogenous molecular patterns. Distinct ligands are recognized by the leucine-rich repeats regions and trigger an inflammatory signal into the cell thanks to the TIR domain of TLR. TLR10 shares the same structural organization but shows a unique expression pattern and functional activity yet to be fully elucidated. In this review, we summarize the literature on TLR10 expression and cellular localization. Several polymorphisms were reported for the TLR10 gene that is present in most mammalians and arose from gene duplication of an ancestral TLR1-like gene. Accordingly, TLR10 was shown to act as TLR1 in terms of TLR2 interaction and TLR1/2 ligands recognition; however, in contrast to all the other TLRs it could also trigger anti-inflammatory signaling and was responsive to several unrelated microbial components. In this review, we will describe key steps and recent updates on TLR10 research highlighting common or divergent findings, in humans and animals.