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Communication between cells sometimes takes place over large distances and involves water-soluble mediators (hormones). Cell-cell communication can also take place through direct membranemembrane contact. The molecules involved in these recognition events have been extensively described at the genetic and biochemical level for components of the immune system. Communication mediated by soluble products such as lymphokines [1, 2] is experimentally more tractable than the problem of communication involving membrane-membrane contact, since in the former

Abbreviation: IL-2, interleukin-2. case the effector molecules can be isolated and their effects assessed in direct binding and functional assays. Molecular events involved in cell-cell communication at the level of membrane-membrane contact have recently been studied in experiments where one membrane is replaced by a model membrane …