Strategies for monitoring cell–cell interactions

Multicellular organisms depend on physical cell–cell interactions to control physiological processes such as tissue formation, neurotransmission and immune response. These intercellular binding events can be both highly dynamic in their duration and complex in their composition, involving the participation of many different surface and intracellular biomolecules. Untangling the intricacy of these interactions and the signaling pathways they modulate has greatly improved insight into the biological processes that ensue upon cell–cell engagement and has led to the development of protein- and cell-based therapeutics. The importance of monitoring physical cell–cell interactions has inspired the development of several emerging approaches that effectively interrogate cell–cell interfaces with molecular-level detail. Specifically, the merging of chemistry- and biology-based technologies to deconstruct the complexity of cell–cell interactions has provided new avenues for understanding cell–cell interaction biology and opened opportunities for therapeutic development. Cell–cell interactions and resulting signaling events drive key biological processes. This Review discusses the deconvolution of this complex biology through the development of tools for visualizing, chemically tagging and functionally exploiting these interactions.