title: Crystallization and preliminary X-ray diffraction of human interleukin-7 bound to unglycosylated and glycosylated forms of its alpha-receptor.
abstract: The interleukin-7 (IL-7) signaling pathway plays an essential role in the development, proliferation and homeostasis of T and B cells in cell-mediated immunity. Understimulation and overstimulation of the IL-7 signaling pathway leads to severe combined immunodeficiency, autoimmune reactions, heart disease and cancers. Stimulation of the IL-7 pathway begins with IL-7 binding to its alpha-receptor, IL-7R alpha. Protein crystals of unglycosylated and glycosylated complexes of human IL-7-IL-7R alpha extracellular domain (ECD) obtained using a surface entropy-reduction approach diffract to 2.7 and 3.0 A, respectively. Anomalous dispersion methods will be used to solve the unglycosylated IL-7-IL-7R alpha ECD complex structure and this unglycosylated structure will then serve as a model in molecular-replacement attempts to solve the structure of the glycosylated IL-7-alpha-receptor complex.
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry, Comprehensive Cancer Center, Ohio State University, 467 Hamilton Hall, 1645 Neil Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210, USA.
authors.forename: Joseph
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wickham
authors.forename: Scott T R
authors.initials: ST
authors.lastname: Walsh
mesh_terms: D003460:Crystallization; D006031:Glycosylation; D006801:Humans; D015851:Interleukin-7 / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism*; D011485:Protein Binding / Q000502:physiology; D020395:Receptors, Interleukin-7 / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism*; D014961:X-Ray Diffraction / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D015851:Interleukin-7; D020395:Receptors, Interleukin-7; C415350:interleukin-7 receptor, alpha chain