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Updated: May 7, 2026

Ligand Nano-cluster Arrays in a Supported Lipid Bilayer
Published on: April 23, 2017
Nanoscale ligand spacing influences receptor triggering in T cells and NK cells
Derfogail Delcassian1, David Depoil, Dominika Rudnicka
1Department of Materials and ‡Division of Cell and Molecular Biology, Imperial College London , Exhibition Road, London SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom.
Abstract:
Bioactive nanoscale arrays were constructed to ligate activating cell surface receptors on T cells (the CD3 component of the TCR complex) and natural killer (NK) cells (CD16). These arrays are formed from biofunctionalized gold nanospheres with controlled interparticle spacing in the range 25-104 nm. Responses to these nanoarrays were assessed using the extent of membrane-localized phosphotyrosine in T cells stimulated with CD3-binding nanoarrays and the size of cell contact area for NK cells stimulated with CD16-binding nanoarrays. In both cases, the strength of response decreased with increasing spacing, falling to background levels by 69 nm in the T cell/anti-CD3 system and 104 nm for the NK cell/anti-CD16 system. These results demonstrate that immune receptor triggering can be influenced by the nanoscale spatial organization of receptor/ligand interactions.
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