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A sweet target for innate immunity

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Galectins are carbohydrate-binding proteins with diverse activities, but there is no unifying picture of their primary physiological role. Galectins now emerge as autonomous bacteria-killing agents (pages 295–301), unexpected findings that may point to a principal role of these proteins in innate immunity.

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Figure 1: Gal-4 and Gal-8 serve as bactericidal lectins.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Fu-Tong Liu is in the Department of Dermatology and Charles L. Bevins is in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, School of Medicine and Graduate Group in Immunology, University of California–Davis, Davis, California, USA.,

    Fu-Tong Liu & Charles L Bevins

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  1. Fu-Tong Liu
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  2. Charles L Bevins
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Correspondence to Fu-Tong Liu or Charles L Bevins.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Liu, FT., Bevins, C. A sweet target for innate immunity. Nat Med 16, 263–264 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm0310-263

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