IL-7 (human) (monomeric):Fc (LALA-PG)-KIH (human) (rec.)

Interleukin-7 (IL-7) is a hematopoietic growth factor and a member of the IL-7/IL-9 family, which is produced by fetal liver cells, stromal cells in the bone marrow (BM), thymus and other epithelial cells, including keratinocytes and enterocytes. The receptor of IL-7, IL-7R, is a heterodimeric complex consisting of the alpha-chain (CD127) and the common cytokine receptor gamma-chain, shared with the receptors for IL-2, IL-4, IL-7, IL-9, IL-15 and IL-21, and expressed in a variety of cells. IL-7 has a critical developmental function at every stage of T cell development, for both alphabeta and gammadelta lineages, and for the development and survival of naive T cells as well as generation and maintenance of CD4 and CD8 memory. IL-7 is also essential for the development and maintenance of the new ILCs. IL-7 is important throughout hematopoiesis, facilitating key lineage fate decisions. IL-7 is thought to support aberrant immune activity in autoimmune diseases such as diabetes and multiple sclerosis and in chronic inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis and inflammatory bowel disease. IL-7 contributes to leukemia development in vivo and also stimulates multiple immune-mediated mechanisms that contribute to the eradication of tumors. The protein IL-7 (human) (monomeric):Fc (LALA-PG)-KIH (human) (rec.) is produced by using two different vectors, one encoding for the IL-7 (human):Fc (LALA-PG) Knobs sequence (synthesizing a protein of 60kDa) and one encoding for the Fc (LALA-PG) 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-7 (human) (monomeric):Fc-KIH (human) (rec.). The LALA-PG mutations inhibit binding to FcgammaRs and C1q while FcRn binding and Fc stability remain unaffected.