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The tetraspanin web modulates immune-signalling complexes

Shoshana Levy1, Tsipi Shoham

  • 1Department of Medicine, Division of Oncology, Stanford University Medical Center, Stanford, California 94305, USA. levy@cmgm.stanford.edu

Nature Reviews. Immunology
|February 3, 2005
PubMed

The tetraspanin web represents a new concept of molecular interactions in the immune system. Whereas most surface immune-modulating molecules involve receptor-ligand interactions, tetraspanins associate with partner proteins and facilitate their lateral positioning in the membrane. Moreover, the same tetraspanin molecule can associate with different proteins depending on the cell type. Most importantly, members of this family tend to associate with each other, together with their partners, in membrane microdomains that provide a scaffold for the transmission of external stimuli to intracellular-signalling components.

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