Biology of C-reactive protein and the acute phase response.

In the nearly half century since its discovery, interest in CRP has waxed and waned. That interest has now been intensified, both because of recognition that CRP is prototypical of a family of acute phase proteins, including serum amyloid, and because it can now be seen as one of a unique class of proteins that may represent a host defense system that parallels but is distinct from immunologic response.