Studying signal transduction in skin-resident T cells (sr-T cells) can be limited by the small size of clinical biopsies. Here, we isolated sr-T cells from clinical samples and analysed signalling protein complexes by multiplex immunoprecipitation detected by flow cytometry (mIP-FCM). In samples from two independent donors, antigenic stimulation induced signalling proteins to join shared complexes that were observed in seven pairwise combinations among five proteins. This demonstrates that sr-T cells isolated from small clinical samples provide sufficient material for mIP-FCM-based analysis of signalling-induced protein complexes. We propose that this strategy may be useful for gaining improved mechanistic insight of sr-T cell signal transduction associated with dermatological disease.
Keywords: T cell antigen receptor; multiplex technology; protein-protein interaction; signal transduction; skin-resident T cell.
© 2014 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.