Mechanistic insight into lymphocyte activation through quantitative imaging and theoretical modelling

Increasingly, it is apparent that in order to understand the complexity of immunosurveillance at the cell–cell junction, quantitative analysis at the single cell level is necessary. The visualisation of the large-scale rearrangement of proteins characterising what is known as the immunological synapse (IS) was an important discovery shaping our understanding of the events occurring during immune recognition. The use of supported planar bilayers and geometrically designed substrates combined with advanced imaging techniques such as total internal reflection fluorescence (TIRF) and Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) has provided insight into the spatio-temporal dynamics of receptor signalling and the role of receptor trafficking in regulating cell signalling. Theoretical modelling will play a key role in the integration of such quantitative data providing mechanistic insight into lymphocyte activation.