Infectious diseases that cause hemolysis are among the most threatening human diseases,
because of severity and/or global distribution. In these conditions, hemeproteins and heme
are released, but whether heme affects the inflammatory response to microorganism
molecules remains to be characterized. Here, we show that heme increased the lethality and
cytokine secretion induced by LPS in vivo and enhanced the secretion of cytokines by
macrophages stimulated with various agonists of innate immune receptors. Activation of …