Although the effect size of genetic risk variants for severe bacterial disease is currently unknown, the only reported invasive bacterial disease case-control study of candidate gene sequencing used a comparable sample size (230 cases) and reported an odds ratio of 27.0 (P = 2x10-6) for the effect of combined TLR4 coding variants on susceptibility to invasive meningococcal disease [37]. Here, TLR4 is linked to bacterial infectious disease.