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In-Depth Information
2.4 Conclusions
With only 18 TR/pMHC 3D structures, the atomic details of TR/pMHC interactions
already show a great deal of variability. IMGT standardization is a step toward a
better understanding of the mechanisms ruling TR/pMHC recognition. It will help
comparing new experimentally resolved 3D structures with published data. However,
the TR/pMHC interactions are far from being unravelled and the study of the
TR/pMHC interactions with the other proteins of the immunological synapse will be
crucial. For example, the interaction between an MHC and the CD4 considerably
enhances the pMHC/TR sensibility (Irvine, Purbhoo, Krosgaard, and Davis 2002;
Davis 2002). The understanding of the T cell triggering early events is subject to
active studies.
Although the TR/pMHC binding represents a necessary step for the TR recogni-
tion, many factors, the TR affinity for the pMHC, the relocation of surface proteins
such as CD4 or CD8 in the immunological synapse are necessary for generating the
T cell activation signal. Each of these steps needs to be described and characterized
so that data from different experiments can be integrated. IMGT standardization will
be further extended on the IMGT Web site at http://imgt.cines.fr as new parameters
become available.
2.5 Citing IMGT/3Dstructure-DB
Users are requested to cite IMGT/3Dstructure-DB (Kaas et al. 2004) and this article,
and to quote the IMGT home page URL, http://imgt.cines.fr.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to Vijay Garapati for his contribution to Tables 3 and 4 and to the
IMGT
®
team for helpful discussion. E.D. was the holder of a doctoral grant from the
Ministère de l'Education Nationale, de l'Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche
(MENESR). K.Q. was the recipient of a doctoral grant from the MENESR and was
supported for one year by a grant from the Association pour la Recherche sur le
Cancer (ARC). IMGT
®
is a registered Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
(CNRS) mark. IMGT
®
has been a National RIO Bioinformatics Platform since 2001
(CNRS, INSERM, CEA, INRA). IMGT
®
was funded in part by the BIOMED1
(BIOCT930038), Biotechnology BIOTECH2 (BIO4CT960037), and 5th PCRDT
Quality of Life and Management of Living Resources (QLG2-2000-01287) programs
of the European Union and received subventions from ARC and from the Génopole-
Montpellier-Languedoc-Roussillon. IMGT
®
is currently supported by the CNRS, the
MENESR (Université Montpellier II Plan Pluri-Formation), BIOSTIC-LR2004,
Région Languedoc-Roussillon, ACI-IMPBIO IMP82-2004, the Réseau National des
Génopoles RNG, GIS-AGENAE, Agence Nationale de la Recherche ANR
(BIOSYS06_135457), and the European ImmunoGrid project (IST-2004-0280069).
