IL-38 (aa 20-152) (human) (monomeric):Fc-KIH (human) (rec.)

IL-38 (IL-1F10) belongs to the IL-1 family of proteins. IL-38 is expressed in heart, placenta, fetal liver, spleen, thymus and tonsil. The expression in a variety of immune tissues and similarity to IL-1Ra suggest a role of IL-38 in the inflammatory response. It has been reported that removal of the N-terminus domain of the interleukins of the IL-1F family such as IL-1F5 / 6 / 8 or 9 (also called IL-36Ra, IL-36alpha, IL-36beta or IL-36gamma) is important to increase their biological activity. Recently it has been shown that IL-38 is N-terminally processed and secreted by apoptotic cells. Released processed IL-38 (20-152) binds to the receptor Interleukin-1 receptor accessory protein-like 1 (IL1RAPL1, TIGIRR-2) at the surface of macrophages. Processed IL-38-activated IL1RAPL1 reduces the production of IL-6 leading to inflammation attenuation. IL-38 is unregulated during some autoimmune diseases such as Systemic Lupus Erythematosus. The protein IL-38 (human) (monomeric):Fc-KIH (human) (rec.) is produced by using two different vectors, one encoding for the IL-38 (human):Fc Knobs sequence (synthesizing a protein of 45kDa) and one encoding for the Fc Holes sequence (synthesizing a protein of 28kDa). Both vectors transfected into HEK293 cells produce both Fc molecules (Knobs-into-Holes technology, J.B. Ridgway, et al., Protein Eng. 9, 617 (1996)) required for dimerization of the Fc moieties and for secretion of the final protein IL-38 (human)(monomeric):Fc-KIH (human) (rec.).