[초청강연] Signaling Events Important for Immune Cell Development and Activation

One major focus of our laboratory is to understand how signals initiated by engagement of cell surface receptors are integrated and regulated so that the desired downstream biologic effect can be realized. Our studies have led to an exploration of how several adapter proteins influence signaling events in the various hematopoietic lineages. This presentation will focus on two current projects in the laboratory. The first addresses the impact of mutating key regions of the adapter protein, SH2 domain containing leukocyte phosphoprotein of 76 kDa (SLP-76), on immunoreceptor and integrin signaling in several hematopoeitic cell types using biochemical, imaging, and biologic readouts of function. Collectively, these studies demonstrate that the molecular requirements of SLP-76 to support immunoreceptor and integrin signals differ and that the molecular complexes nucleated by SLP-76 appear to have different characteristics in different cell lineages. The second project that will be described stems from an observation that the serine/threonine kinase, AKT is essential for T cell development. Work will be presented that extends these findings to the role of AKT as an essential element for long term renewal of hematopoietic stem cells.