C-Reactive Protein: The Most Familiar Stranger

C-reactive protein (CRP) is a highly conserved pentraxin with pattern recognition receptor -like activities. However, despite being used widely as a clinical marker of inflamma-tion, the in vivo functions of CRP and its roles in health and disease remain largely unestablished. This is, to certain extent, due to the drastically different expression patterns of CRP in mice and rats, raising concerns about whether the functions of CRP are essential and conserved across species and how these model animals should be manipulated to examine the in vivo actions of human CRP. In this review, we discuss recent advances highlighting the essential and conserved functions of CRP across species, and propose that appropriately designed animal models can be used to understand the origin-, conformation-, and localization -dependent actions of human CRP in vivo. The improved model design will contribute to establishing the pathophysi-ological roles of CRP and facilitate the development of novel CRP-targeting strategies.

Automated summary

C-reactive protein (CRP) is a highly conserved pentraxin with pattern recognition receptor-like activities. Despite its extensive clinical use as an inflammation marker, the in vivo functions of CRP and its roles in health and disease remain largely unknown. Differences in CRP expression patterns in mice and rats raise concerns about the conservation of CRP functions across species and the appropriate use of animal models. This review discusses recent advances in understanding the essential and conserved functions of CRP and proposes the use of properly designed animal models to study the actions of human CRP in vivo. Improved model design will contribute to understanding the roles of CRP in disease and the development of targeted therapies.