TLR7-independent control of retroviral infection.

Germinal center responses, neutralizing antibody production, and clearance of murine leukemia virus (MLV) infection occur without TLR7 signaling in BALB.J and C57BL/6N mice.

• Why it matters: Innate sensing is needed to trigger adaptive immunity, but retroviral protection has been linked mainly to TLR7; this work addresses whether other pathways can substitute.
• What they did: The authors used TLR7-deficient BALB.J and C57BL/6N mice and genetic crosses to test whether control depends on a shared recessive mechanism, then assessed dependence on MyD88 and STING.
• The result: TLR7-independent control is linked to the same recessive mechanism in both strains, extends to mouse mammary tumor virus (MMTV) neutralizing antibodies, and is independent of MyD88 and STING signaling.

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