Linda V. Sinclair
T cell immunologist at the University of Dundee who works out how amino acid supply, through transporters such as SLC7A5, feeds mTORC1 and decides what activated T cells become
Senior Researcher, Cell Signalling and Immunology, University of Dundee · long-time member of Doreen Cantrell's group · PhD, University of Dundee · BSc in Immunology, University of Edinburgh
When a T cell meets its target, it must grow fast, divide many times and switch on its killing machinery. All of that needs amino acids. Linda Sinclair is first author of a 2013 paper from Doreen Cantrell's group in Dundee that showed how the T cell gets them (SIN2013). Signals from the antigen receptor, the T cell's sensor for infection, switch on the transporter SLC7A5, a channel that carries large amino acids such as leucine into the cell. Mouse T cells lacking SLC7A5 could not keep mTORC1, the growth-control complex, active or keep making the growth protein c-Myc, and they failed to turn into effector cells. The study, done in mouse T cells, made amino acid transport a control point for immune responses rather than a passive supply line.
Sinclair grew up partly in Sweden, studied immunology at the University of Edinburgh and did a PhD at the University of Dundee. Since then Sinclair has worked with Doreen Cantrell on how nutrients steer T lymphocytes. An earlier paper (Nature Immunology, 2008) showed that mTOR controls where T cells travel in the body, and later work found that SLC7A5-driven methionine uptake acts as a metabolic checkpoint for effector T cells (eLife, 2019).
The University of Dundee lists Sinclair as a Senior Researcher in the Division of Cell Signalling and Immunology. Current topics include mTOR signalling, amino acid uptake and autophagy in CD8 killer T cells, with related work on MAIT cells, B cell metabolism and iron handling in dendritic cells.
Milestones in the Atlas
A selection, not a full bibliography: only papers that meet the Atlas inclusion criteria.
| Year | Evidence | Study |
|---|---|---|
| 2013 | A | Control of amino-acid transport by antigen receptors coordinates the metabolic reprogramming essential for T cell differentiation SIN2013 First author: showed in mouse T cells that antigen receptors switch on the SLC7A5 amino acid transporter, which sustains mTORC1 and c-Myc and is needed for effector differentiation. |
Co-authors in the Atlas 1
People with a profile here who share at least one study with Linda V. Sinclair.
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- Doreen A. Cantrell Studies how signaling and metabolism control T-cell fate, including how amino-acid uptake and mTORC1 steer T-cell differentiation.
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