This book intends to assemble reviews on the progress in defining and controlling the spatiotemporal organization of key events in immune cell activation. Improved understanding of MIRR-mediated signaling has a number of potential practical applications, from the rational design of drugs and vaccines to the engineering of cells for biotechnological purposes. In Section 1, spatial organization and physiological function of the MIRR family members such as T cell receptor (TCR), B cell receptor (BCR), Fc receptors, natural killer (NK) cell receptors, and platelet glycoprotein VI (GPVI) will be reviewed. Section 2 will focus on current models of MIRR-triggering and highlight modern technologies to visualize cell-cell interaction contacts such as immunological synapse and to measure protein-protein interactions in space in real time. Potential therapeutic strategies targeting the MIRR-mediated transmembrane signal transduction will be shortly reviewed in Section 3. This book will summarize our current knowledge in this field and illustrate how control of the MIRR-triggered signaling could become a potential target of medical intervention, thus bridging basic and clinical immunology.
Immunological recognition is a central feature of the adaptive immunity of vertebrates. With the exception of agnathans, which developed an entirely distinct set of immunologically-specific molecules, all vertebrates use a recognition system based on what Achsah Keegan and I suggested in 1992 be termed multichain immune recognition receptors (MIRRs). MIRRs consist of ligand-binding molecules that are immunoglobulin supergene family members associated with signal transducers and enhancers in such a way as both insure precise ligand recognition, discrimination and ampHfication of the signal. Two of the prototypic sets of MIRRs, the T-cell and B-cell receptors, are among the most remarkable recognition molecules known. These are extraordinarily diverse molecules in which the range of ligands that can be potentially recognized prob ably exceeds the actual numbers of lymphocytes in the body. The discovery of the genetic basis of assembling these receptors and understanding how they bind to their cognate antigens are among the most stunning of scientific achievements. Yet these immensely specific binding chains (the heavy/light chain pair for immunoglobulin and the a/p chain pair for most T cells), when expressed as membrane molecules, have no obvious mechanism of signaling. For example, the iH chain cytosolic do main consists of three amino acids (lysine-valine-lysine) and the L chain is not even embedded in the membrane. Furthermore, there is no known direct mechanism to propagate information from the binding domain of the B-cell or T-cell receptors to the membrane-proximal domains of the same chains.
Immunological recognition is a central feature of the adaptive immunity of vertebrates. With the exception of agnathans, which developed an entirely distinct set of immunologically-specific molecules, all vertebrates use a recognition system based on what Achsah Keegan and I suggested in 1992 be termed multichain immune recognition receptors (MIRRs). MIRRs consist of ligand-binding molecules that are immunoglobulin supergene family members associated with signal transducers and enhancers in such a way as both insure precise ligand recognition, discrimination and ampHfication of the signal. Two of the prototypic sets of MIRRs, the T-cell and B-cell receptors, are among the most remarkable recognition molecules known. These are extraordinarily diverse molecules in which the range of ligands that can be potentially recognized prob ably exceeds the actual numbers of lymphocytes in the body. The discovery of the genetic basis of assembling these receptors and understanding how they bind to their cognate antigens are among the most stunning of scientific achievements. Yet these immensely specific binding chains (the heavy/light chain pair for immunoglobulin and the a/p chain pair for most T cells), when expressed as membrane molecules, have no obvious mechanism of signaling. For example, the iH chain cytosolic do main consists of three amino acids (lysine-valine-lysine) and the L chain is not even embedded in the membrane. Furthermore, there is no known direct mechanism to propagate information from the binding domain of the B-cell or T-cell receptors to the membrane-proximal domains of the same chains.