The T-cell receptor (TCR)-CD3 complex serves as a central paradigm for general principles of receptor assembly, ligand recognition, and signaling in the immune system. There is no other receptor system that matches the diversity of both receptor and ligand components. The recent expansion of the immunological structural database is beginning to identify key principles of MHC and peptide recognition. The multicomponent assembly of the TCR complex illustrates general principles used by many receptors in the immune system, which rely on basic and acidic transmembrane residues to guide assembly. The intrinsic binding of the cytoplasmic domains of the CD31 and z chains to the inner leaflet of the plasma membrane represents a novel mechanism for control of receptor activation: Insertion of critical CD31 tyrosines into the hydrophobic membrane core prevents their phosphorylation before receptor engagement.
LIGAND BINDING BY THE EXTRACELLULAR DOMAINS OF T-CELL RECEPTORS: STRUCTURAL BASIS OF ab AND gd TCR BINDING TO A DIVERSE GROUP OF LIGANDST he structures of many T-cellreceptors (TCRs) in their ligand-bound state have now been determined, allowing some of the general rules of antigen recognition to be distilled. Though the best studied interaction is the binding of abTCR with peptide-MHC complexes, it is highly instructive to compare the prototypical binding to peptide-MHC with the recognition of lipid antigen-CD1 complexes and engagement of nonclassical MHC class I molecules by gdTCRs. These comparisons show that the recognition strategies for these