[CSBi-events] Whitehead Seminar by Jay T. Groves

[Dawn Davis Loring]

  The Whitehead Institute presents:


Jay T. Groves


Department of Chemistry


UC Berkeley




"Pattern formation and signal transduction at intercellular synapses"


Abstract:
Coordinated rearrangement of cell membrane receptors into large-scale 
patterns is emerging as a broadly significant theme of intercellular signal 
transduction.  In an effort to help unravel the mechanisms governing 
protein organization at intercellular synapses and the role of this 
organization in signal transduction, we have dissected living T cell 
immunolgical synapses in a hybrid live cell - supported membrane 
configuration.  Nanometer-scale patterns of fluid lipid membranes, 
displaying cell recognition and signaling molecules, have been constructed 
on solid substrates by a combination electron-beam and scanning-probe 
lithographic techniques, along with membrane self assembly.  When doped 
with appropriate proteins, supported membranes mimic and antigen presenting 
cell and can form synapses with living T cells. The substrate 
nanostructures guide the mobility of membrane-linked proteins and, 
correspondingly, the motion of their cognate partner proteins within living 
cells.  A critical feature of this strategy is that proteins displayed in 
the supported membrane exhibit diffusive mobility.  This enables formation 
of functional synaptic structures with living cells by permitting the 
necessary protein rearrangements.  The manner in which precisely defined 
geometrical restrictions frustrate or facilitate synapse formation and 
signaling in living cells can be used to elucidate the mechanisms and 
functional consequences of molecular patterns at intercellular synapses.


Location & Date:
         Whitehead Institute Auditorium
         March 10, 2004
         2pm-3pm

Sponsored by: Paul Matsudaira


Dawn Davis Loring
Communications Coordinator
Computational and Systems Biology (CSBi)
Phone: (617) 324-0150
Fax: (617) 324-0081

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
77 Massachusetts Avenue
Building 68 - Room 459
Cambridge, MA 02139 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.mit.edu/pipermail/csbi-events/attachments/20040308/1500e789/attachment.htm