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Updated: Jul 20, 2026

Identification of Functional Protein Regions Through Chimeric Protein Construction
Published on: January 8, 2019
The solution structure of the membrane-proximal cytokine receptor domain of the human interleukin-6 receptor
Oliver Hecht1, Andrew J Dingley, Andreas Schwanter
1Biochemisches Institut der Christian-Albrechts-Universität Kiel, Olshausenstr. 40, D-24118 Kiel, Germany.
Abstract:
The members of the interleukin-6-type family of cytokines interact with receptors that have a modular structure and are built of several immunoglobulin-like and fibronectin type III-like domains. These receptors have a characteristic cytokine receptor homology region consisting of two fibronectin type III-like domains defined by a set of four conserved cysteines and a tryptophan-serine-X-tryptophan-serine sequence motif. On target cells, interleukin-6 (IL-6) initially binds to its cognate alpha-receptor and subsequently to a homodimer of the signal transducer receptor gp130. The IL-6 receptor (IL-6R) consists of three extracellular domains. The N-terminal immunoglobulin-like domain is not involved in ligand binding, whereas the third membrane-proximal fibronectin-like domain (IL-6R-D3) accounts for more than 90% of the binding energy to IL-6. Here, we present the solution structure of the IL-6R-D3 domain solved by multidimensional heteronuclear NMR spectroscopy.
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