DSSS - Pattern Recognition Receptor signalling: seeing and responding to danger

Pattern recognition receptors include membrane and cytosolic proteins, for example Toll-like receptors (TLRs) and NOD-like receptors (NLRs), which broadly signal by forming large protein platforms or supramolecular organising centres (SMOCs). Understanding the mechanistic basis of PRR signalling has been hampered by limited availability of selective and specific antibodies challenging the robustness of standard cell biology/signal transduction biology techniques such as immunolocalization or immunoprecipitation leading to often contradictory cell population data sets. Elegant structural biology studies have identified how PRRs bind to their ligands in vitro and the protein-protein interactions involved in SMOC formation, but how these proteins behave in cells is only now being studied at a single protein resolution. Here I will show our recent data on TLR and NLR signalling including single cell imaging, single molecule fluoresence studies and cryoelectron tomography to explore the mechanisms of how these receptors signal within cells.