[Study of the membrane expression of TcR/CD3 complex using somatic cell mutants].

T lymphocytes express membrane antigen receptor TcR/CD3 complexes only when all subunits are correctly assembled. Studies on TcR/CD3 membrane negative T cell variants containing all necessary subunits intracellularly, may allow to identify amino acids important for different subunit interactions. In this review, we summarize our recent work on TcR/CD3 negative variants of the human T cell line Jurkat. We found two critical amino acids in the TcR-alpha and TcR-beta extracellular constant regions (phenylalanine n. 216 and intrachain disulfide cysteine n. 212) involved in TcR-alpha beta/CD3- gamma epsilon, delta epsilon intermediary complex/zeta 2 homodimer interactions: (1) amino acid exchanges of phenylalanine demonstrated the importance of an aromatic amino acid residue at this position; (2) the intrachain disulfide bond assures a tertiary structure of the constant domain that is necessary for association with zeta 2 homodimers.