Toll-like Receptor Definition

tōllīk

noun

Any of a class of proteins that are located within membranes, often on the cell surface, and are an important part of the innate immune system. Toll-like receptors recognize and bind to pathogens or to fragments resulting from cell damage and then activate biochemical pathways that generate an immune response.

American Heritage Medicine

Other Word Forms of Toll-like Receptor

Noun

Singular:

Toll-like receptor

Plural:

toll-like receptors

Origin of Toll-like Receptor

From Toll the name of a gene in drosophila fruit flies that when mutated affects embryonic development and the innate immune system from German toll amazing, great, cool (in Das is ja toll! That's really cool!, exclamation of German biologist Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard upon observing in 1985 that mutations in a particular gene caused ventral underdevelopment in drosophila, a discovery that eventually led to the identification of Toll-like receptors) from Middle High German tol foolish, crazy, good-looking from Old High German foolish Old English dol dull from Germanic dula- dumbfounded, stupefied

From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition