Immune recognition by non-catalytic tyrosine-phosphorylated receptors

Grantholders

  • Prof Anton van der Merwe

    University of Oxford

Project summary

Professor van der Merwe's research aims to increase our understanding of the molecular and biophysical rules governing recognition by leukocyte receptors, a process that underpins immune responses. He has generated important biophysical data on the interactions that occur between T-cell antigen receptors (TCRs) and their surface-anchored ligands, and has demonstrated that the sizes of the molecules involved in the formation of the immunological synapse play a key role in the resulting signalling outcome. This has led him to propose a novel model of TCR triggering called the kinetic-segregation (K-S) model. Recently he has proposed that other leukocyte non-catalytic tyrosine-phosphorylated receptors (NTRs) are also triggered by the K-S mechanism. Professor van der Merwe will now address three main aims: to determine the mechanism of NTR triggering upon ligand binding; to explore how NTRs integrate their signals with each other and with other receptors; and to elucidate the mechanisms driving, and functional consequences of, NTR aggregation into clusters.