Promoters, toll like receptors and microRNAs: A strange association.

Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are proteins that play key role in the innate immune system. In the present study, ~1000 base pairs upstream are taken from the transcription start site of the various TLR genes (10 known) in human. About 40 microRNAs have been identified that share 12-19 nucleotide sequence similarity with the promoter regions of 10 TLRs. It is proposed that the microRNA performs potential role in identification of promoter sequence and initiation of transcription.