Bifurcation of Toll-Like Receptor 9 Signaling by Adaptor Protein 3

Abstract

Location Matters Plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDCs), an immune cell specialized to respond to viral infections, use Toll-like receptors (TLRs) 7 and 9 expressed in endosomes to sense viral nucleic acids. Triggering of TLR7 or 9 results in the induction of two distinct signaling pathways, one that leads to the production of proinflammatory cytokines and another that induces the expression of antiviral type I interferons. How one receptor can trigger two distinct signaling pathways, however, is not clear. Sasai et al. (p. 1530 ) now show that subcellular localization is key. Cells from mice deficient in the Adapter Protein 3 (AP-3) complex, which regulates protein sorting to intracellular vesicles, did not produce type I interferons in response to TLR9 ligand, but proinflammatory cytokine production remained intact. AP-3 was required for trafficking of TLR9 from early endosomes, where proinflammatory signaling can occur, to lysosome-related organelles, where the signaling machinery required for type I interferon induction is located. Such spatial segregation may represent a common mechanism whereby activation of one receptor can result in the induction of multiple independent signaling cascades.