Understanding the initiation of B cell signaling through live cell imaging

Antibody responses are initiated by the binding of antigens to clonally distributed cell surface B cell receptors (BCRs) that trigger signaling cascades resulting in B cell activation. Using conventional biochemical approaches, the components of the downstream BCR signaling pathways have been described in considerable detail. However, far less is known about the early molecular events by which the binding of antigens to the BCRs initiates BCR signaling. With the recent advent of high resolution, high speed, live cell, and single molecule imaging technologies, these events are just beginning to be elucidated. Understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying the initiation of BCR signaling may provide new targets for therapeutics to block dysregulated BCR signaling in systemic autoimmune diseases and in B cell tumors and to aid in the design of protein subunit vaccines. In this chapter, we describe the general procedures for using these new imaging techniques to investigate the early events in the initiation of BCR signaling.