Revealing the Role of Microscale Architecture in Immune Synapse Function Through Surface Micropatterning

The immune synapse has emerged as a compelling example of structural complexity within cell-cell interfaces. This chapter focuses on the use of microcontact printing to isolate and investigate how spatial organization of signaling molecules drives the function of immune cells. In the process detailed here, multiple rounds of microcontact printing are combined to create patterned surfaces that control the relative spatial localization of CD3 and CD28 signaling in T cells, effectively replacing an antigen presenting cell with an engineered surface. A set of approaches used to address key issues of T cell activation are described and discussed.