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ITAM-mediated tonic signalling through pre-BCR and BCR complexes

John G Monroe1

  • 1Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA. monroej@mail.med.upenn.edu

Nature Reviews. Immunology
|March 25, 2006
PubMed

Studies carried out over the past few years provide strong support for the idea that Ig alpha-Ig beta-containing complexes such as the pre-B-cell receptor and the B-cell receptor can signal independently of ligand engagement, and this has been termed tonic signalling. In this Review, I discuss recent literature that is relevant to the potential mechanisms by which tonic signals are initiated and regulated, and discuss views on how tonic and ligand-dependent (aggregation-mediated) signalling differ. These mechanisms are relevant to the possibility that tonic signals generated through immunoreceptor tyrosine-based activation motif (ITAM)-containing proteins that are expressed by oncogenic viruses induce transformation in non-haematopoietic cells.

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