T-Cell Receptor Microclusters Critical for T-Cell Activation Are Formed Independently of Lipid Raft Clustering

Abstract

We studied the function of lipid rafts in generation and signaling of T-cell receptor microclusters (TCR-MCs) and central supramolecular activation clusters (cSMACs) at immunological synapse (IS). It has been suggested that lipid raft accumulation creates a platform for recruitment of signaling molecules upon T-cell activation. However, several lipid raft probes did not accumulate at TCR-MCs or cSMACs even with costimulation and the fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) between TCR or LAT and lipid raft probes was not induced at TCR-MCs under the condition of positive induction of FRET between CD3ζ and ZAP-70. The analysis of LAT mutants revealed that raft association is essential for the membrane localization but dispensable for TCR-MC formation. Careful analysis of the accumulation of raft probes in the cell interface revealed that their accumulation occurred after cSMAC formation, probably due to membrane ruffling and/or endocytosis. These results suggest that lipid rafts control protein translocation to the membrane but are not involved in the clustering of raft-associated molecules and therefore that the lipid rafts do not serve as a platform for T-cell activation.

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We thank S. Yamasaki, K. Hirose, and A. Altman for helpful discussion; Y. Murahashi for assistance with numerical analysis of FRET data; and H. Yamaguchi for secretarial assistance.

This work was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (A.H.-T. and T.S.) from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan.