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Cloning, expression and characterization of recombinant growth factors
Svoboda, Ondřej ; Bartůněk, Petr (advisor) ; Živný, Jan (referee)
Cloning, expression and characterization of recombinant growth factors The role of growth factors and cytokines to regulate a variety of biological processes is ever increasing. Many studies have illustrated that this diverse group of proteins are capable of stimulating cellular growth, proliferation, survival, and cellular differentiation. This thesis mainly focuses on the cytokine interleukin-6 and its specific receptor (IL-6R). The IL-6R protein has been shown to exist as both a membrane-bound and soluble form. The soluble form of IL-6R (sIL-6R) signals via a mechanism called "transsignaling" that involves the receptor associating extracellularly with its ligand IL-6 to generate an IL-6/sIL- 6R agonistic complex. This complex subsequently binds directly to another IL-6 receptor, gp130 that in turn activates it to augment a specific response. It is known that the formation of the IL-6/sIL-6R complex can be greatly enhanced by converting it into a single molecule, called Hyper-IL-6. This fusion protein consists of a sIL- 6R located at the N-terminus and IL-6 at the C-terminus separated by a flexible linker sequence. It was more than ten years since human Hyper-IL-6 was first described and since then, this molecule has proven to be an ...
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