Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520-8103, USA.
Toll-like receptors (TLRs) activate a complimentary set of defense responses that protect cells during microbial infection. In the recent issue of Immunity, Xu et al. (2007) elucidate a molecular pathway that connects TLR4-mediated innate immune signaling to autophagy, a process of cytoplasmic sequestration and subsequent recycling or degradation.