August 25th: Wenqian Li (Yan Yu) "Spatial organization of phagocytic receptors and its role in immune synergy" 11:00am

Defense will be held virtually. To Register For The Defense Please Click On The Zoom Link

Abstract:

Receptors of innate immune cells function synergistically to detect pathogens and elicit appropriate immune responses. Different pairs of receptors on the membrane of phagosomes, the intracellular organelle for encapsulating and digesting internalized pathogens, have been found to spatially organize to regulate the signaling outcome. However, there is a lack of studies to directly probe the role of phagocytic receptor clustering in innate immune regulation, largely due to the limited approaches. To address this knowledge gap, my thesis research has been focused on two aspects: (i) developing a “geometric manipulation” technique to directly manipulate the spatial organization of phagocytic receptors and signaling proteins on phagosomes inside living cells, and (ii) employing this new technique for understanding the mechanism of synergistic signaling between a few phagocytic receptor pairs. Specifically, we designed particles with spatially patterned ligands as phagocytic targets to decouple different phagocytic receptors to opposite sides on single phagosomes without changing the overall membrane composition. We found that nanoscale proximity, not necessarily colocalization, between phagocytic receptors is required for their synergistic regulation of macrophage immune responses. To further investigate the role of spatial organization in immunity, we directly imaged the nanoscale distribution of different components on natural yeast cell wall particles. The chemical composition and structure is heterogeneous on yeast cell wall particles which causes the heterogenous recruitment of receptors on immune cells. It emphasizes the importance of the nanoscale distribution of different components in the biological function of yeast cell wall particles. Overall, my research elucidates the importance of the spatial organization of ligand-receptor in innate immune responses.

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November 19th: Yuxi Li (Hengyao Niu) "TBA" 10:00am

Defense will be held virtually. To Register For The Defense Please Click On The Zoom Link

Abstract: