Considering the ubiquitous expression of RAGE in the lungs, its putative involvement in the regulation of lung infl ammation and the somewhat inconsistent fi ndings which currently exist in the literature, we investigated its role during pneumonia, a major cause of morbidity and mortality world-wide. Recently, we reported that murine pneumonia induced by S. pneumoniae and by infl uenza A virus was associated with an upregulation of intraalveolar (membrane bound) RAGE expression [39, 40] . Furthermore, lung tissue of mice intranasally infected with the K. pneumoniae or with M. tuberculosis also showed increased RAGE expression (unpublished data). Th ese clinically very diff erent types of pulmonary infection and the involvement of RAGE therein will be discussed below.