ArticleeLife2014
Serum amyloid A is a retinol binding protein that transports retinol during bacterial infection.
Article in eLife, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 85 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
85 citing papers in PubMed, 149 citations in OpenAlex.
- The gut microbiota directs vitamin A flux to regulate intestinal T cell development.Cell host & microbe · 2026Article
- Epithelial sensing of vitamin A shapes intestinal antimicrobial defense.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Sequential lymphotoxin-β receptor and retinoic acid receptor signals regulate cDC2 fate.Nature immunology · 2025Article
- Serum amyloid A: multifaceted roles in inflammation and cellular interactions.Immunologic research · 2025Review
- Sequential Lymphotoxin Beta Receptor and Retinoic Acid Receptor signals regulate cDC2 fates.Research square · 2025Article
- The gut microbiota directs vitamin A flux to regulate intestinal T cell development.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Studies of All-trans Retinoic Acid Transport in the Eye.Investigative ophthalmology & visual science · 2025Article
- Serum Amyloid A: A Double-Edged Sword in Health and Disease.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- Recent Advances in Studies of Serum Amyloid A: Implications in Inflammation, Immunity and Tumor Metastasis.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- Functional regulation of cytotoxic T cells by gut microbial metabolites.Gut microbes reports · 2025Article
- Retinoic Acid (RA): A Critical Immunoregulatory Molecule in Asthma and Allergies.Immunity, inflammation and disease · 2024Review
- Serum amyloid A expression in liver promotes synovial macrophage activation and chronic arthritis via NFAT5.The Journal of clinical investigation · 2024Article
- New Regulatory roles for Human Serum Amyloid A.International journal of research in oncology · 2024Article
- Innate immune and chronic heat stress responses in sturgeons: Advances and insights from studies on Russian sturgeons.Fish and shellfish immunology reports · 2023Article
- Lactobacillus Intestinalis Primes Epithelial Cells to Suppress Colitis-Related Th17 Response by Host-Microbe Retinoic Acid Biosynthesis.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2023Article
- Serum amyloid protein A in inflammatory bowel disease: from bench to bedside.Cell death discovery · 2023Review
- Vitamin A Ameliorated Irinotecan-Induced Diarrhea in a Piglet Model Involving Enteric Glia Modulation and Immune Cells Infiltration.Nutrients · 2022Article
- Signal peptide stabilizes folding and inhibits misfolding of serum amyloid A.Protein science : a publication of the Protein Society · 2022Article
- Vitamin A homeostasis and cardiometabolic disease in humans: lost in translation?Journal of molecular endocrinology · 2022Review
- Using zebrafish to understand reciprocal interactions between the nervous and immune systems and the microbial world.Journal of neuroinflammation · 2022Review
25 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Retinol plays a vital role in the immune response to infection, yet proteins that mediate retinol transport during infection have not been identified. Serum amyloid A (SAA) proteins are strongly induced in the liver by systemic infection and in the intestine by bacterial colonization, but their exact functions remain unclear. Here we show that mouse and human SAAs are retinol binding proteins. Mouse and human SAAs bound retinol with nanomolar affinity, were associated with retinol in vivo, and limited the bacterial burden in tissues after acute infection. We determined the crystal structure of mouse SAA3 at a resolution of 2 Å, finding that it forms a tetramer with a hydrophobic binding pocket that can accommodate retinol. Our results thus identify SAAs as a family of microbe-inducible retinol binding proteins, reveal a unique protein architecture involved in retinol binding, and suggest how retinol is circulated during infection.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.