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Lipids and signaling

Do lipids tune B cell signaling?

Nature Chemical Biology volume 19, pages 669–670 (2023)Cite this article

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The role of lipid membrane domains in the activation of immune cells remains elusive. New microscopy data on B cell signaling support a mechanism in which lipid membrane domains consolidate upon B cell receptor clustering.

Scientists have long marveled about the way that an immune cell can robustly and specifically respond to a single target molecule of one kind. After the antigen has docked to the receptor on the surface of the immune cell, the initiation of immune cell signaling requires extensive spatial reorganization of multiple proteins at the plasma membrane, such as receptors and co-receptors, activating and inhibiting enzymes, etc. This protein sorting could be driven by protein size, charge or conformational change, variations in protein mobility or immobilization, or changes in membrane lipid organization (reviewed in ref. 1). However, the exact mechanism that tips the balance from a resting cell to an activated cell remains under debate. In this issue of Nature Chemical Biology, Shelby et al. use a toolbox of chemical and biology techniques and advanced quantitative imaging to elucidate further key details about the role of the heterogeneity of the lipid environment in the initiation of B cell signaling2.

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Fig. 1: B cell signaling is tuned by lipid membrane heterogeneity.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jožef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Iztok Urbančič

  2. Institute of Applied Optics and Biophysics, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Jena, Germany

    Christian Eggeling

  3. Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology, Jena, Germany

    Christian Eggeling

  4. Jena Center for Soft Matter, Jena, Germany

    Christian Eggeling

  5. Science for Life Laboratory, Department of Women’s and Children’s Health, Karolinska Institutet, Solna, Sweden

    Erdinc Sezgin

Authors
  1. Iztok Urbančič
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  2. Christian Eggeling
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  3. Erdinc Sezgin
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Correspondence to Christian Eggeling.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Urbančič, I., Eggeling, C. & Sezgin, E. Do lipids tune B cell signaling?. Nat Chem Biol 19, 669–670 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41589-023-01303-8

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