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Allosteric inhibition of the T cell receptor by a designed membrane ligand

The T cell receptor (TCR) is a complex molecular machine that directs the activation of T cells, allowing the immune system to fight pathogens and cancer cells. Despite decades of investigation, the molecular mechanism of TCR activation is still controversial. One of the leading activation hypothese...

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Autores principales: Ye, Yujie, Morita, Shumpei, Chang, Justin J, Buckley, Patrick M, Wilhelm, Kiera B, DiMaio, Daniel, Groves, Jay T, Barrera, Francisco N
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10554751/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37796108
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.82861
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author Ye, Yujie
Morita, Shumpei
Chang, Justin J
Buckley, Patrick M
Wilhelm, Kiera B
DiMaio, Daniel
Groves, Jay T
Barrera, Francisco N
author_facet Ye, Yujie
Morita, Shumpei
Chang, Justin J
Buckley, Patrick M
Wilhelm, Kiera B
DiMaio, Daniel
Groves, Jay T
Barrera, Francisco N
author_sort Ye, Yujie
collection PubMed
description The T cell receptor (TCR) is a complex molecular machine that directs the activation of T cells, allowing the immune system to fight pathogens and cancer cells. Despite decades of investigation, the molecular mechanism of TCR activation is still controversial. One of the leading activation hypotheses is the allosteric model. This model posits that binding of pMHC at the extracellular domain triggers a dynamic change in the transmembrane (TM) domain of the TCR subunits, which leads to signaling at the cytoplasmic side. We sought to test this hypothesis by creating a TM ligand for TCR. Previously we described a method to create a soluble peptide capable of inserting into membranes and binding to the TM domain of the receptor tyrosine kinase EphA2 (Alves et al., eLife, 2018). Here, we show that the approach is generalizable to complex membrane receptors, by designing a TM ligand for TCR. We observed that the designed peptide caused a reduction of Lck phosphorylation of TCR at the CD3ζ subunit in T cells. As a result, in the presence of this peptide inhibitor of TCR (PITCR), the proximal signaling cascade downstream of TCR activation was significantly dampened. Co-localization and co-immunoprecipitation in diisobutylene maleic acid (DIBMA) native nanodiscs confirmed that PITCR was able to bind to the TCR. AlphaFold-Multimer predicted that PITCR binds to the TM region of TCR, where it interacts with the two CD3ζ subunits. Our results additionally indicate that PITCR disrupts the allosteric changes in the compactness of the TM bundle that occur upon TCR activation, lending support to the allosteric TCR activation model. The TCR inhibition achieved by PITCR might be useful to treat inflammatory and autoimmune diseases and to prevent organ transplant rejection, as in these conditions aberrant activation of TCR contributes to disease.
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spelling pubmed-105547512023-10-06 Allosteric inhibition of the T cell receptor by a designed membrane ligand Ye, Yujie Morita, Shumpei Chang, Justin J Buckley, Patrick M Wilhelm, Kiera B DiMaio, Daniel Groves, Jay T Barrera, Francisco N eLife Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics The T cell receptor (TCR) is a complex molecular machine that directs the activation of T cells, allowing the immune system to fight pathogens and cancer cells. Despite decades of investigation, the molecular mechanism of TCR activation is still controversial. One of the leading activation hypotheses is the allosteric model. This model posits that binding of pMHC at the extracellular domain triggers a dynamic change in the transmembrane (TM) domain of the TCR subunits, which leads to signaling at the cytoplasmic side. We sought to test this hypothesis by creating a TM ligand for TCR. Previously we described a method to create a soluble peptide capable of inserting into membranes and binding to the TM domain of the receptor tyrosine kinase EphA2 (Alves et al., eLife, 2018). Here, we show that the approach is generalizable to complex membrane receptors, by designing a TM ligand for TCR. We observed that the designed peptide caused a reduction of Lck phosphorylation of TCR at the CD3ζ subunit in T cells. As a result, in the presence of this peptide inhibitor of TCR (PITCR), the proximal signaling cascade downstream of TCR activation was significantly dampened. Co-localization and co-immunoprecipitation in diisobutylene maleic acid (DIBMA) native nanodiscs confirmed that PITCR was able to bind to the TCR. AlphaFold-Multimer predicted that PITCR binds to the TM region of TCR, where it interacts with the two CD3ζ subunits. Our results additionally indicate that PITCR disrupts the allosteric changes in the compactness of the TM bundle that occur upon TCR activation, lending support to the allosteric TCR activation model. The TCR inhibition achieved by PITCR might be useful to treat inflammatory and autoimmune diseases and to prevent organ transplant rejection, as in these conditions aberrant activation of TCR contributes to disease. eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd 2023-10-05 /pmc/articles/PMC10554751/ /pubmed/37796108 http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.82861 Text en © 2023, Ye et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics
Ye, Yujie
Morita, Shumpei
Chang, Justin J
Buckley, Patrick M
Wilhelm, Kiera B
DiMaio, Daniel
Groves, Jay T
Barrera, Francisco N
Allosteric inhibition of the T cell receptor by a designed membrane ligand
title Allosteric inhibition of the T cell receptor by a designed membrane ligand
title_full Allosteric inhibition of the T cell receptor by a designed membrane ligand
title_fullStr Allosteric inhibition of the T cell receptor by a designed membrane ligand
title_full_unstemmed Allosteric inhibition of the T cell receptor by a designed membrane ligand
title_short Allosteric inhibition of the T cell receptor by a designed membrane ligand
title_sort allosteric inhibition of the t cell receptor by a designed membrane ligand
topic Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10554751/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37796108
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.82861
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