Prior to being recognized by the cell surface Toll-like receptor 4/MD-2 complex, lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in the bacterial outer membrane has to be processed by LPS-binding protein and CD14. CD14 forms a complex with monomeric LPS extracted by LPS-binding protein and transfers LPS to the cell surface signaling complex. In a previous study, we prepared a functional recombinant MD-2 using a bacterial expression system. We expressed the recombinant protein in Escherichia coli as a fusion protein with thioredoxin and demonstrated specific binding to LPS. In this study, we prepared recombinant CD14 fusion proteins using the same approach. Specific binding of LPS was demonstrated with a recombinant protein containing 151 aminoterminal residues. The region contained a hydrophilic region and the first three leucine-rich repeats (LRRs). The LRRs appeared to contribute to the binding because removal of the region resulted in a reduction in the binding function. LPS binding to the recombinant MD-2 was resistant to detergents. On the other hand, the binding to CD14 was prevented in the presence of low concentrations of detergents. In the case of human MD-2, the secondary myristoyl chain of LPS added by LpxM was required for the binding. A nonpathogenic penta-acyl LPS mutant lacking the myristoyl chain did not bind to MD-2 but did so normally to CD14. The broader LPS-binding spectrum of CD14 may allow recognition of multiple pathogens, and the lower affinity for LPS binding of CD14 allows transmission of captured materials to MD-2.Gram-negative bacterial infection often causes lethal endotoxic shock. Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) is the major component of the bacterial outer membrane and is the causative agent of shock (27,35). LPS is recognized by both innate and adaptive immune systems. LPS is composed of O-antigen repeats, the core region, and lipid A. The O-antigen structures vary by strain and are recognized by the adaptive immune system, resulting in the production of specific antibodies. The target structure for the innate immune system is lipid A, which has conserved structures (27). Toll-like receptors (TLRs) play important roles in the recognition of pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) (17). TLR4 is the major receptor for LPS and causes intracellular signal transduction (8,25,26). Among the TLR family proteins, TLR4 is unique in having an associated molecule, MD-2 (29). MD-2 is thought to be a secretory glycoprotein from the deduced amino acid sequences but is anchored on the cell surface by TLR4. The association of MD-2 is required for cell surface expression of TLR4. In addition, MD-2 has been shown to participate in the recognition of ligands (22,29). The direct binding of LPS to MD-2 has been shown in several assay systems (16,34,38). MD-2 was identified as a homologue of MD-1, which is physically associated with RP105 (19). RP105 is a B-cell-specific cell surface glycoprotein with leucine-rich repeats (LRRs) in the extracellular domain in the same way as with TLRs (20,21). The RP105/MD-1 complex was also...