Pang Xiaodong, Zhou Huan-Xiang
Department of Physics and Institute of Molecular Biophysics, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306, USA.
BMC Biophys. 2013 Jun 3;6:7. doi: 10.1186/2046-1682-6-7.
A recent study by Dietz et al. using single-molecule fluorescence microscopy techniques demonstrates that, in the absence of the ligand InlB, the MET receptor exists as both a monomer and a dimer on the cell membrane, and addition of the ligand leads to increased MET dimerization. Under the crowded conditions of the cell membrane, dimer formation may be a common phenomenon for cell surface receptors. Ligand binding to both monomeric and dimeric receptors may provide parallel routes to receptor activation.
迪茨等人最近利用单分子荧光显微镜技术进行的一项研究表明，在缺乏配体InlB的情况下，MET受体在细胞膜上以单体和二聚体的形式存在，添加配体可导致MET二聚化增加。在细胞膜拥挤的条件下，二聚体形成可能是细胞表面受体的常见现象。配体与单体和二聚体受体的结合可能为受体激活提供平行途径。
