Current study of Toll-like receptor and fundus disease / 中华实验眼科杂志

ABSTRACT

Toll-like receptors (TLRs) can recognize pathogens associated molecular of micro-organisms,leading to activation of the downstream signal transduction pathway and participate in innate and adaptive immune response.TLRs can also recognize endogenous danger signaling molecule and therefore be involved in pathogenesis of many low-grade chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.TLRs are always expressed on immune cells,and recent studies confirmed that retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells also express TLRs.This review focuses on the research progress of fundus diseases and TLRs,such as the recognition of exogenous pathogenic microorganisms and endogenous danger signals in fundus,induction of inflammatory response,phagocytosis of photoreceptor outer segment by RPE and angiogenesis of fundus diseases.