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Quantitative interactomics in primary T cells unveils TCR signal diversification extent and dynamics

Abstract

The activation of T cells by the T cell antigen receptor (TCR) results in the formation of signaling protein complexes (signalosomes), the composition of which has not been analyzed at a systems level. Here, we isolated primary CD4+ T cells from 15 gene-targeted mice, each expressing one tagged form of a canonical protein of the TCR-signaling pathway. Using affinity purification coupled with mass spectrometry, we analyzed the composition and dynamics of the signalosomes assembling around each of the tagged proteins over 600 s of TCR engagement. We showed that the TCR signal-transduction network comprises at least 277 unique proteins involved in 366 high-confidence interactions, and that TCR signals diversify extensively at the level of the plasma membrane. Integrating the cellular abundance of the interacting proteins and their interaction stoichiometry provided a quantitative and contextual view of each documented interaction, permitting anticipation of whether ablation of a single interacting protein can impinge on the whole TCR signal-transduction network.

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Fig. 1: Composition of the protein–protein network assembling around 15 canonical proteins of the TCR-signaling pathway over 600 s of stimulation.
Fig. 2: Evolution over 600 s of TCR stimulation of bait–prey interaction stoichiometry among the 15 interactomes.
Fig. 3: Organizing the 15 interactomes using cellular protein abundance and interaction stoichiometry.
Fig. 4: Stoichiometry plots of the 15 baits.
Fig. 5: Ab initio prediction of the composition and stoichiometry of novel interactomes.
Fig. 6: TCR signals branch at the level of the plasma membrane leading to the assembly of multiple signalosomes.
Fig. 7: A model summarizing the protein–protein interactions occurring during the first 10 min of TCR activation.
Fig. 8: ARGHAP45 is crucial for proper T and B cell migration.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding authors upon request. The mass spectrometry proteomics data have been deposited to the ProteomeXchange Consortium via the PRIDE partner repository (http://www.ebi.ac.uk/pride) with the dataset identifiers PXD012826, PXD007660 and PXD003972.

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Acknowledgements

We thank D. Mori, C. Wülfing (University of Bristol) and A. Zarubica for discussions and E. Bergot, S. Li, T. Chao, S. Durand and the late F. Danjan for technical help. This work was supported by CNRS, INSERM, the European Research Council (ERC) under FP7 program (grant agreement no. 322465 (INTEGRATE), to B.M.) and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement no. 787300 (BASILIC), to B.M.), Agence Nationale de la Recherche (BASILIC project, to M.M.), the MSDAVENIR Fund (to B.M.), the Investissement d’Avenir program of the French Ministry of Research ProFI (Proteomics French Infrastructure, ANR-10-INBS-08, to O.B.-S.), and PHENOMIN (French National Infrastructure for mouse Phenogenomics; ANR-10-INBS-07, to B.M.), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos 81471595 and 31400759, to Y.L.) and the Education Department of Henan Province, China (16HASTIT030, to Y.L.) and by fellowships from the INTEGRATE (to M.G.M, G.V., K.K. and K.C.), MSDAVENIR (to Y.O.) and PHENOMIN (to L.G.) projects.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Contributions

B.M., R.R. and G.V. conceived the project. B.M. and F.F supervised the construction of OST-tagged mice. R.R. and M.M. performed the experiments shown in Supplementary Figs. 13 with the help of L.G., Y.O. and M.G.M. K.K. characterized the SHIP1OST, PLC-γ1OST and PTPN6OST mice with the help of J.C. A.G.de P., K.C. and O.B.-S. performed the MS experiments. G.V. designed the computational and bioinformatics analysis. Y.L., M.M., H.L. and B.M designed the experiments shown in Fig. 8 and L.L., L.Z. and H.W. performed them. B.M., G.V. and R.R. wrote the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Yinming Liang, Romain Roncagalli or Bernard Malissen.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Peer review information Laurie A. Dempsey was the primary editor on this article and managed its editorial process and peer review in collaboration with the rest of the editorial team.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–6, Tables 1 and 2 and Notes 1–4.

Reporting Summary

Supplementary Dataset 1

List of the bait–prey interactions identified in the present study. In the tab ‘bait–prey interactions’, each line shows an interaction between a bait and a prey and includes the corresponding FDRs, enrichments and stoichiometries before stimulation and at each stimulation time point. Cellular abundances (number of copies per cell) of the listed proteins are also specified. Where applicable, protein–protein interactions identified in public databases are indicated with the corresponding references and detection methods. The lists of the high-confidence bait–prey interactions identified for each bait are also shown in tabs CBL to VAV1.

Supplementary Dataset 2

Proteome of antigen-experienced conventional CD4+ T cells. The proteins identified in CD4+ T cells from wild-type and OST-tagged mice and their cellular abundance (number of copies per cell) are shown (see Methods).

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Voisinne, G., Kersse, K., Chaoui, K. et al. Quantitative interactomics in primary T cells unveils TCR signal diversification extent and dynamics. Nat Immunol 20, 1530–1541 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41590-019-0489-8

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