I’m trying to understand HMGB1. I know it’s secreted but immune cells. So is this like a post it left by immune cells marking things that need to be removed by antibodies?
In: Biology
No it does a lot of things. It binds DNA to regulate repair, transcription, and replication but I’m not very familiar with that. In immune response it has multiple roles – it acts as a DAMP, Damage Associated Molecular Pattern molecule, that bind pattern recognition receptors on immune cells, to initiate inflammation and activate the immune cells. Specifically it can bind a receptor called TLR4 that’s found on a lot of immune cells; when TLR4 is bound a pathway called NF-kB is activated and that in turn activates the innate immune cells and triggers the inflammation response. It can also act as a chemokine, which are molecules that attract immune cells (the immune cells follow a chemokine gradient moving towards higher concentration).
TL;DR It’s really not a sticky note binding things to be destroyed, it’s more involved in activating innate immune cells and initiating the inflammatory process.
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