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T CELL MOTILITY

CCR7 fuels and LFA-1 grips

Nature Immunology volume 19, pages 516–518 (2018)Cite this article

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Naive T cells migrate rapidly through the lymph node. A high-resolution look at the chemokine receptor CCR7 and integrin LFA-1 reveals that T cells remain highly responsive to their microenvironment via instantaneous tuning of chemokine-regulated actin flow and integrin-regulated adhesion.

The integrin LFA-1 and chemokine receptor CCR7 are well known to shape critical events in the immune response to injury and infection, ranging from lymph node (LN) homing and intranodal migration to T cell–antigen-presenting cell interactions1,2,3. Naive T cells migrate at high speeds (15 μm/min) through the LN, guided by the fibroblastic reticular cell network that is decorated with chemokine and integrin ligands thought to optimize the encounter of T cells with antigen-bearing dendritic cells. To achieve rapid migration, T cells must optimize the competing adhesive and tractive forces derived from the forest of ligands. Naive T cells lacking either LFA-1 or CCR7 display reduced intranodal speed4,5, but how these players transmit information from the extracellular microenvironment to effect intracellular motility machinery is poorly understood. In this issue of Nature Immunology, sophisticated measurement by Hons et al. of in vivo morphometry and in vitro cytoskeletal dynamics reveals that naive T cells cruise smoothly through the LN facilitated by independent chemokine signals that act as the ‘accelerator’ to the actin ‘motor’ and integrins that engage a highly dynamic ‘clutch’6.

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Fig. 1: The balance of actin retrograde flow and adhesion regulates migration efficiency.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics and Astronomy and Department of Biology, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA

    Patrick W. Oakes

  2. David H. Smith Center for Vaccine Biology and immunology, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY, USA

    Deborah J. Fowell

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  1. Patrick W. Oakes
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  2. Deborah J. Fowell
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Correspondence to Deborah J. Fowell.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Oakes, P.W., Fowell, D.J. CCR7 fuels and LFA-1 grips. Nat Immunol 19, 516–518 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41590-018-0118-y

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