About the Authors

Teri L. Kissner

Affiliation Department of Immunology, United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Frederick, Maryland, United States of America

Gordon Ruthel

Affiliation Department of Immunology, United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Frederick, Maryland, United States of America

Shahabuddin Alam

Affiliation Department of Immunology, United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Frederick, Maryland, United States of America

Enrique Mann

Affiliation Department of Chemistry, The Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California, United States of America

Dariush Ajami

Affiliation Department of Chemistry, The Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California, United States of America

Mitra Rebek

Affiliation Department of Chemistry, The Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California, United States of America

Eileen Larkin

Affiliation Department of Immunology, United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Frederick, Maryland, United States of America

Stefan Fernandez

Affiliation Department of Immunology, United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Frederick, Maryland, United States of America

Robert G. Ulrich

Affiliation Department of Immunology, United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Frederick, Maryland, United States of America

Sun Ping

Affiliation Macromolecular Crystallography Laboratory, National Cancer Institute at Frederick, Frederick, Maryland, United States of America

David S. Waugh

Affiliation Macromolecular Crystallography Laboratory, National Cancer Institute at Frederick, Frederick, Maryland, United States of America

Julius Rebek Jr

Affiliation Macromolecular Crystallography Laboratory, National Cancer Institute at Frederick, Frederick, Maryland, United States of America

Kamal U. Saikh

kamal.saikh@amedd.army.mil

Affiliation Department of Immunology, United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Frederick, Maryland, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: Performed cytokine measurement and micro-array experiments: TLK. Partly involved in writing the manuscript: TLK. Performed the confocal image data collection and edited the manuscript: GR. Performed the transfection, co-immunoprecipitation and animal experiments: SA. Contributed in the synthesis of compounds: EM DA. Contributed optimization and data analysis of micro-array based binding experiments: EL SF RU. Contributed design and synthesis of BB-loop mimetic: MR. Contributed expression and purification of TIR domain recombinant protein: SP DSW. Designed and supervised overall synthetic chemistry: JR. Designed and supervised the research and wrote the manuscript: KUS. Performed the experiments: TLK GR SA EM DA EL SF SP KUS. Analyzed the data: TLK GR SA EM DA MR EL SF SP DSW JR KUS. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: RGU. Wrote the paper: TLK SP MR KUS.