Pentraxins in the activation and regulation of innate immunity

Humoral fluid phase pattern recognition molecules (PRMs) are a key component of the activation and regulation of innate immunity. Humoral PRMs are diverse. We focused on the long pentraxin PTX3 as a paradigmatic example of fluid phase PRMs. PTX3 acts as a functional ancestor of antibodies and plays a non-redundant role in resistance against selected microbes in mouse and man and in the regulation of inflammation. This molecule interacts with...