Fig. 2

Programming sensing and responsiveness in designer therapeutic cells through synthetic Notch receptors. Notch is a natural signal transduction receptor that recognizes the Delta ligand. The Notch–Delta interaction induces the cleavage of Notch, leading to the release of the Notch intracellular domain. Subsequently, this intracellular domain translocates into the nucleus, where it regulates the expression of Notch target genes. In contrast, the synNotch system contains an extracellular antibody/nanobody domain that recognizes user-defined antigens. SynNotch is also cleaved by antigen recognition; however, it can induce the expression of user-defined target genes by releasing artificial transcription factors