Integrin structure: heady advances in ligand binding, but activation still makes the knees wobble

Integrins are one of the major families of cell-adhesion receptors. In the past year, the first structure of an integrin has been published, ligand-binding pockets have been defined, and mechanisms of receptor priming and activation elucidated. Like all major advances, however, these studies have raised more questions than they have answered about issues such as the mechanisms underlying ligand-binding specificity and long-range conformational regulation.