ArticleFrontiers in physics2019
Mechanical Proofreading: A General Mechanism to Enhance the Fidelity of Information Transfer Between Cells.
Article in Frontiers in physics, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 26 citations in OpenAlex.
- Antibody Fc receptor CD16a mediates natural killer cell activation via mechanotransduction of piconewton forces.Science advances · 2026Article
- Mechanotransduction through T cell receptors: consensus, controversies and future outlooks.Experimental & molecular medicine · 2026Review
- Antibody Fc receptor CD16a mediates natural killer cell activation via mechanotransduction of piconewton forces.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- DNA Origami Tension Sensors (DOTS) for Single-Molecule Force Measurements at Fluid Intermembrane Junctions.Nano letters · 2025Article
- Immunological synapse: structures, molecular mechanisms and therapeutic implications in disease.Signal transduction and targeted therapy · 2025Review
- Mechanical forces amplify TCR mechanotransduction in T cell activation and function.Applied physics reviews · 2024Review
- Immune cells use active tugging forces to distinguish affinity and accelerate evolution.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Mechanically Triggered Hybridization Chain Reaction.Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English) · 2021Article
- Single Molecule Force Spectroscopy Reveals Distinctions in Key Biophysical Parameters of αβ T-Cell Receptors Compared with Chimeric Antigen Receptors Directed at the Same Ligand.The journal of physical chemistry letters · 2021Article
- Mechanical Regulation of Transcription: Recent Advances.Trends in cell biology · 2021Review
- Live-cell super-resolved PAINT imaging of piconewton cellular traction forces.Nature methods · 2020Article
- Multiple actin networks coordinate mechanotransduction at the immunological synapse.The Journal of cell biology · 2020Article
- T Cell Reprogramming Against Cancer.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2020Review
- Emerging uses of DNA mechanical devices.Science (New York, N.Y.) · 2019Article
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
The cells and receptors of the immune system are mechanically active. Single molecule force spectroscopy, traction force microscopy, and molecular tension probe measurements all point to the importance of piconewton (pN) molecular forces in immune function. For example, forces enhance the ability of a T cell to discriminate between nearly identical antigens. The role of molecular forces at these critical immune recognition junctions is puzzling because mechanical forces generally facilitate bond dissociation, potentially increasing the difficulty for a receptor to recognize its cognate antigen. The advantage molecular forces confer in the process of immune recognition is not clear. Why would cells expend energy to exert force on the critical, but tenuous bonds that mediate immune surveillance? Do molecular forces provide some advantage to the immune system? The premise of this review is that molecular forces provide a specificity advantage to immune cells. Inspired by the recent discovery that receptor forces regulate immune signaling in T cells and B cells, we dub this notion "mechanical proofreading," akin to more classic kinetic proofreading models. During the process of mechanical proofreading, cells exert pN receptor forces on receptor-ligand interactions, deliberately increasing the energy cost of the immune recognition process in exchange for increased specificity of signaling. Here, we review the role of molecular forces in the immune system and suggest how these forces may facilitate mechanical proofreading to increase the specificity of the immune response.
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