SWISS-MODEL pioneered the field of automated modeling as the first protein modeling service on the Internet. In combination with the visualization tool Swiss-PdbViewer, the Internet-based Workspace and the SWISS-MODEL Repository, it provides a fully integrated sequence to structure analysis and modeling platform. This computational environment is made freely available to the scientific community with the aim to hide the computational complexity of structural bioinformatics and encourage bench scientists to make use of the ever-increasing structural information available. Indeed, over the last decade, the availability of structural information has significantly increased for many organisms as a direct consequence of the complementary nature of comparative protein modeling and experimental structure determination. This has a very positive and enabling impact on many different applications in biomedical research as described in this paper.

Automated comparative protein structure modeling with SWISS-MODEL and Swiss-PdbViewer: a historical perspective.

CD40 is a cell surface receptor that belongs to the tumor necrosis factor-R (TNF-R) family, and that was first identified and functionally characterized on B lymphocytes. Its critical role in T cell-dependent humoral immune responses was demonstrated by patients with the hyper-IgM syndrome, as well as by gene targeting in mice. However, in recent years it has become clear that CD40 is expressed much more broadly, including expression on monocytes, dendritic cells, endothelial cells, and epithelial cells. In addition, the CD40-ligand (CD40-L/CD154), a member of the TNF family, is also expressed more widely than activated CD4+ T cells only. Therefore it is now thought that CD40-CD40-L interactions play a more general role in immune regulation. Collectively these studies have culminated in pre-clinical and clinical studies that are in progress. This article reviews recent developments in this field of research, with main emphasis on (1) structure and expression of CD40 and its ligand; (2) CD40 signal transduction; (3) in vitro function of CD40 on different cell types; and (4) in vivo functions of CD40/CD40-L interactions.

https://jlb.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/jlb.67.1.2

CD40-CD40 ligand.

Clinical spectrum of X-linked hyper-IgM syndrome

Functions of CD40 on B cells, dendritic cells and other cells

Clinical, immunologic and genetic analysis of 29 patients with autosomal recessive hyper-IgM syndrome due to Activation-Induced Cytidine Deaminase deficiency

https://www.cell.com/immunology/pdf/S0167-5699(96)80904-2.pdf

Sarah Deacock

Papers

CD40lbase: a database of CD40L gene mutations causing X-linked hyper-IgM syndrome.