{"id":67973,"date":"2026-06-22T07:28:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T05:28:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inmuno.es\/index.php\/2026\/06\/22\/bacterial-transfer-messenger-rna-activates-antiviral-rna-sensing-to-induce-inflammatory-innate-immune-responses\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T07:28:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T05:28:20","slug":"bacterial-transfer-messenger-rna-activates-antiviral-rna-sensing-to-induce-inflammatory-innate-immune-responses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inmuno.es\/index.php\/2026\/06\/22\/bacterial-transfer-messenger-rna-activates-antiviral-rna-sensing-to-induce-inflammatory-innate-immune-responses\/","title":{"rendered":"Bacterial transfer-messenger RNA activates antiviral RNA sensing to induce inflammatory innate immune responses"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p><b>J Immunol<\/b>. 2026 Jun 7;215(6):vkag149. doi: 10.1093\/jimmun\/vkag149.<\/p>\n<p><b>ABSTRACT<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Pathogen-derived RNAs function as pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) that activate innate immune responses through pattern recognition receptors (PRRs). While viral RNA is well established as a trigger of antiviral immunity, the identity of bacterial RNA species that function as immunostimulatory ligands and the host PRRs that recognize them remain poorly defined. Here, we identify bacterial-specific transfer-messenger RNA (tmRNA), a conserved RNA involved in ribosome rescue during bacterial trans-translation, as a previously unrecognized RNA PAMP. tmRNA robustly induced the production of IL-6, TNF-\u03b1, and IFN-\u03b1 in murine Flt3 ligand-derived dendritic cells. Genetic analyses revealed that this response was dependent on the TLR7-MyD88 signaling pathway. Systemic administration of tmRNA in mice induced transient cytokinemia and inflammatory changes in the liver and lung, both of which were abolished in TLR7-deficient mice, demonstrating a critical role for TLR7 signaling in tmRNA-induced inflammation in vivo. In contrast, tmRNA failed to induce cytokine production in the human plasmacytoid dendritic cell line CAL-1 despite preserved responsiveness to the TLR7\/8 agonist R848, suggesting that bacterial RNA sensing mechanisms may differ between murine and human immune cells. Together, these findings identify tmRNA as a bacterial RNA ligand capable of activating antiviral RNA-sensing pathways in murine immune cells; however, the relevance of these findings to human immune cells remains a limitation of the present study.<\/p>\n<p>PMID:<a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/42323948\/?utm_source=SimplePie&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_content=2985117R&amp;ff=20260622012820&amp;v=2.20.0\">42323948<\/a> | DOI:<a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1093\/jimmun\/vkag149\">10.1093\/jimmun\/vkag149<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>J Immunol. 2026 Jun 7;215(6):vkag149. doi: 10.1093\/jimmun\/vkag149. ABSTRACT Pathogen-derived RNAs function as pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) that activate innate immune responses through pattern recognition receptors (PRRs). While viral RNA is well established as a trigger of antiviral immunity, the identity of bacterial RNA species that function as immunostimulatory ligands and the host PRRs that recognize &#8230; <a title=\"Bacterial transfer-messenger RNA activates antiviral RNA sensing to induce inflammatory innate immune responses\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/inmuno.es\/index.php\/2026\/06\/22\/bacterial-transfer-messenger-rna-activates-antiviral-rna-sensing-to-induce-inflammatory-innate-immune-responses\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Bacterial transfer-messenger RNA activates antiviral RNA sensing to induce inflammatory innate immune responses\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,71],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-publicaciones","category-the-journal-of-immunology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmuno.es\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmuno.es\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmuno.es\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmuno.es\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmuno.es\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inmuno.es\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67973\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmuno.es\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmuno.es\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmuno.es\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}