IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v419y2002i6909d10.1038_nature01076.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Direct observation of ligand recognition by T cells

Author

Listed:
  • Darrell J. Irvine

    (Stanford University School of Medicine
    Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

  • Marco A. Purbhoo

    (Stanford University School of Medicine)

  • Michelle Krogsgaard

    (Stanford University School of Medicine)

  • Mark M. Davis

    (Stanford University School of Medicine)

Abstract

The activation of T cells through interaction of their T-cell receptors with antigenic peptide bound to major histocompatibility complex (MHC) on the surface of antigen presenting cells (APCs) is a crucial step in adaptive immunity. Here we use three-dimensional fluorescence microscopy to visualize individual peptide–I-Ek class II MHC complexes labelled with the phycobiliprotein phycoerythrin in an effort to characterize T-cell sensitivity and the requirements for forming an immunological synapse1,2,3 in single cells. We show that T cells expressing the CD4 antigen respond with transient calcium signalling to even a single agonist peptide–MHC ligand, and that the organization of molecules in the contact zone of the T cell and APC takes on the characteristics of an immunological synapse when only about ten agonists are present. This sensitivity is highly dependant on CD4, because blocking this molecule with antibodies renders T cells unable to detect less than about 30 ligands.

Suggested Citation

  • Darrell J. Irvine & Marco A. Purbhoo & Michelle Krogsgaard & Mark M. Davis, 2002. "Direct observation of ligand recognition by T cells," Nature, Nature, vol. 419(6909), pages 845-849, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:419:y:2002:i:6909:d:10.1038_nature01076
    DOI: 10.1038/nature01076
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature01076
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/nature01076?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Darren B. McAffee & Mark K. O’Dair & Jenny J. Lin & Shalini T. Low-Nam & Kiera B. Wilhelm & Sungi Kim & Shumpei Morita & Jay T. Groves, 2022. "Discrete LAT condensates encode antigen information from single pMHC:TCR binding events," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-18, December.
    2. Omer Dushek & Raibatak Das & Daniel Coombs, 2009. "A Role for Rebinding in Rapid and Reliable T Cell Responses to Antigen," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(11), pages 1-12, November.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:419:y:2002:i:6909:d:10.1038_nature01076. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.