Abstract

Much excitement of the past five years in the area of T-cell-antigen recognition has centred around the immunological synapse — a complex cellular structure that forms at the interface of a T cell and a cell that expresses the appropriate peptide–MHC complexes. Thanks to new imaging technologies, we are now beginning to understand the role of cell-surface molecules and some of their attendant signalling modules in the context of cell-to-cell communication. Progress has been so rapid that T-cell-antigen recognition might be the first system in which the molecular basis of cell–cell recognition is understood.

Author affiliations

1. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute and The Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California 94305, USA.

Correspondence to: Mark M. Davis¹ Email: mdavis@pmgm2.stanford.edu