Molecular recognition of disease at natural killer cell immune synapses

An emerging theme in contemporary molecular immunology is that a knowledge of protein structures and the physical chemistry of soluble receptor/ligand pairs is insufficient to predict the outcome of intercellular communication. Cell surface receptors need to be considered as part of supramolecular complexes of proteins and lipids that facilitate specific receptor conformations and distinct distributions at cell surfaces. As cells of the immune system survey other cells for signatures of disease, proteins accumulate and organise in distinct patterns at the contact regions between the cells. The intercellular organisation of proteins by which a cell's state of health is relayed has been termed the immune or immunological synapse. That different arrangements of segregated protein domains can occur at immune synapses raises a number of important questions. For example does supramolecular organisation of the synapse influence the outcome of the intercellular communication and how is the organisation of protein at immune synapses biophysically controlled?