I agree with you. "Crosslinking" seems to be a very convenient term used
to describe something we know very little about. I'm not a signalling
person, but it seems to me that the term is being used very loosely.
In the graduate course I teach, the students ask, "Exactly what do you
mean by crosslinking"? So I wave my hands and say, "it probably more like
co-modulation: if a set of receptors are bound to a ligand on another
cell, they are going to tend to co-modulate to one area of the cell, as
apposed to a set of receptors being bound by a soluble ligand like Fab.
On the other hand the recent demonstration that class II dimerizes opens
up other possibilities.
By the way, what does Immunology Discussion leader Mean? Are you responsible
for setting up this immunology group?
Jerry Woodward
University of Kentucky
