Cells of the immune system constantly survey their environment for infectious agents and for molecular changes that could be indicative of infection, transformation or stress. On page 862, Dominique Ferrandon and colleagues describe the mechanisms involved in the recognition of specific microbial structures by innate immune receptors in Drosophila melanogaster. The evolutionary ancient signalling pathways that are activated in adult flies following receptor activation have striking parallels with mammalian innate signalling cascades and provide insights into the molecular mechanisms of pathogen recognition by the innate immune system.
Activating receptors, such as the T-cell receptor and certain natural-killer-cell receptors, have a crucial role in immune surveillance and immunity. In their article on page 841, Matthew Call and Kai Wucherpfennig describe the structural basis of the assembly of these receptors, which are composed of a ligand-binding module that is non-covalently associated with one or more dimeric signalling modules. Insights into the architecture of activating receptors have great implications for understanding how signals that result in immune-cell activation are transmitted across the cell membrane.
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