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How T cells see antigen
From Q-bio
Arup Chakraborty, MIT
- Abstract
- Higher organisms, like humans, have an adaptive immune system that can combat pathogens that have not been encountered before. The adaptive immune system can also go awry, and many autoimmune disorders (e.g., multiple sclerosis, type I diabetes, etc.) are the direct consequence of the adaptive immune system attacking the organism’s own tissues. T lymphocytes (T cells) are the orchestrators of the adaptive immune response. They interact with cells, called antigen presenting cells, which display molecular signatures of pathogens on their surface. T cells detect the presence of these molecular signatures of pathogens with great sensitivity. How T cells hunt for antigen, how they discriminate between “self” and “non-self” with extraordinary sensitivity, and how their activation is regulated and mis-regulated are central questions in fundamental biology. In this talk, I will discuss work which brings together theoretical and computational models (rooted in statistical mechanics) with genetic, biochemical, and imaging experiments (with Mark Davis and Art Weiss labs) to shed light on some issues pertinent to T cell signaling. In particular, I will discuss a molecular mechanism that enables T cells to detect minute amounts of antigen, and a signaling module that results in “digital” signaling and could play an important role in determining thymic selection thresholds.
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