Pathogen-associated molecular pattern

Pathogen -associated molecular patterns ( engl. pathogen - associated molecular patterns, PAMPs ) or MAMPS ( Microbe - associated molecular patterns ) are structural motifs or molecules that are characteristic of a wide range of microorganisms and allow the immune system to the invasion of bacteria to detect viruses, fungi or parasites. In general, these structural motifs are conserved essential for these organisms and high. In PAMPs may be a typical arrangement of the sugar molecules to act components of the cell wall of bacteria (lipopolysaccharides ), peptides or nucleic acids of viruses and bacteria.

PAMPs are recognized by pattern recognition Receptors ( PRRs ), which are widely used as part of the innate immune response in immune cells. This results in an initial contact with a pathogen must begin immediately immune response and elimination of the pathogen, since this part of the immune system due to the typical and unchanging molecular pattern no B- cell receptors and T cell receptors have to be adapted, which is usually between three and seven days lasts.

An important subset of PRRs, the Toll-like receptors play an important role in triggering an inflammatory response. Similar to the inflammatory response in mammals solve PAMPs in plant basal immune response. And although these two detection systems are not directly related to each other, they partially recognize the same PAMPs ( TLR5 human and plant FLS2 receptor both recognize, for example, the bacterial flagellin protein ); PRRs use the same structures in order to recognize PAMPs ( so-called leucine rich repeats) and both systems provide the same way this information into the cell.