Reply to Pachathundikandi and Backert

TO THE EDITOR—We thank Pachathundikandi and Backert [1] for their comments on our article. We agree that their data supports our study conclusions. Their data give us new suggestions to investigate Toll-like receptor 10 (TLR10) functions. Little had been known about the function of TLR10 when we started to explore the relationship between TLR10 and Helicobacter pylori infection. Recently, several studies [2, 3] showed the relationship; however, these were clinical studies analyzing the single-nucleotide polymorphisms. Therefore, it was necessary to analyze ligands of TLR10, and we found that H. pylori lipopolysaccharide (LPS) was a ligand candidate of TLR10. Since the discovery of TLRs, it has been revealed that innate immune responses are an important defense against pathogens; for example, intestinal mucosal cells function to protect the host from infection