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We previously demonstrated that high levels of IL-6/sIL-6R complexes are present in sera of patients with systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis (s-JIA) and that the amount of IL-6 estimated in the IL-6/sIL-6R complexes is markedly higher than that measured by the B9 assay. Here, we show that two additional bioassays, employing human myeloma XG-1 cells and human hepatoma Hep3B cells, detected serum IL-6 levels similar to those measured by the B9 assay and approximately 10-fold lower than the IL-6 levels estimated to be present in the IL-6/sIL-6R complex. Using an assay for the measurement of the amount of circulating IL-6 complexed with the sIL-6R and available for binding to gp130 (gp130 binding activity), we show that the IL-6/gp130 binding activity is similar to that detected by the bioassays and again significantly lower than that estimated to be present in the IL-6/sIL-6R complex. Addition of recombinant human IL-6 (rhIL-6) to sera of patients or controls results in a markedly lower increase in the gp130 binding activity in patients than in controls. Moreover, sera from s-JIA patients inhibited in a dose dependent manner the gp130 binding activity assay. These results show that sera from patients with s-JIA contain a factor, or factors, that inhibit(s) the binding of the IL-6/sIL-6R complex to gp130. This inhibitory activity does not appear to be due to soluble gp130, C-reactive protein or autoantibodies to IL-6.

The transmembrane glycoprotein gp130 is involved in many cytokine-mediated cellular responses and acts therein as the signal transducing receptor subunit. Interleukin-6 (IL-6) and interleukin-11 (IL-11), in complex with their specific alpha-receptors, homodimerize gp130 and, as a consequence, activate the Janus kinase (Jak)/signal transducer and activator of transcription (STAT) signalling pathway in their target cells. So far, it is not clear whether gp130 is bound to these cytokines and their specific alpha-receptor subunits through identical or different epitopes. In order to study the interaction of IL-11 and IL-11R with human gp130 the soluble form of the recently cloned human IL-11R was expressed in baculovirus-infected insect cells. By a coprecipitation binding-assay it is demonstrated that IL-11 and IL-6 compete for binding to gp130. Using deletion and point mutants of gp130 it is shown that IL-11-IL-11R and IL-6-IL-6R recognize overlapping binding motifs on gp130. Moreover, using well-established Jak-deficient cell lines we demonstrate that STAT activation by IL-11 requires Jak1. Taken together, our data support the concept that IL-6 and IL-11 activate gp130 by very similar molecular mechanisms.

Ciliary neurotrophic factor (CNTF) drives the sequential assembly of a receptor complex containing the ligand-specific alpha-receptor subunit (CNTFR) and the signal-transducing beta-subunits gp130 and leukemia inhibitory factor receptor-beta (LIFR). CNTFR can function in either membrane-bound or soluble forms. The membrane-bound form mediates the neuronal actions of CNTF, whereas the soluble form serves to confer cytokine responsiveness to non-neuronal cells expressing gp130 and LIFR. The objective of this work was to analyze whether the two receptor isoforms differ in their ability to interact functionally with CNTF and related proteins. Two new types of CNTF variants, characterized by weakened interactions with either CNTFR or both LIFR and gp130, were developed, and the biological activities of these and other mutants were determined in non-neuronal versus neuronal cells, as well as in non-neuronal cells transfected with an expression vector for CNTFR. Membrane anchoring of CNTFR was found to render the CNTF receptor complex relatively insensitive to changes in agonist affinity for either alpha- or beta-receptor subunits and to promote a more efficient interaction with a gp130-depleting antagonistic variant of CNTF. As a result of this phenomenon, which can be rationalized in terms of the multivalent nature of CNTF receptor interaction, CNTF variants display striking changes in receptor selectivity.

The interleukin-6 (IL-6) family of cytokines activates signaling through the formation of either gp130 homodimers, as for IL-6, or gp130-leukemia inhibitory factor receptor (LIFR) heterodimers as for ciliary neurotrophic factor (CNTF), leukemia inhibitory factor, oncostatinM, and cardiotrophin-1. Recent in vitro studies with IL-6 and CNTF have demonstrated that higher order hexameric receptor complexes are assembled in which signaling chain dimerization is accompanied by the dimerization of both the cytokine molecule and its specific receptor alpha subunits (IL-6Ralpha or CNTFRalpha, respectively). IL-11 is a member of the IL-6 family and known to require gp130 but not LIFR for signaling. In this study we investigate the functional and biochemical composition of the IL-11 receptor complex. The human IL-11 receptor alpha-chain was cloned from a human bone marrow cDNA library. IL-11Ralpha was shown to confer IL-11 responsiveness to human hepatoma cells either by cDNA transfection or by adding a soluble form of the receptor (sIL11Ralpha) expressed in the baculovirus system to the culture medium. In vitro immunoprecipitation experiments showed that sIL11Ralpha specifically binds IL-11 and that binding is enhanced by gp130. Similarly to IL-6 and CNTF, gp130 is able to induce dimerization of the IL-11.IL-11Ralpha subcomplex, the result of which is the formation of a pentameric receptor complex. However, in contrast to the other two cytokines, IL-11 was unable to induce either gp130 homodimerization or gp130/LIFR heterodimerization. These results strongly suggest that an as yet unidentified receptor beta-chain is involved in IL-11 signaling.

Interleukin-6 (IL-6) is the major growth factor for myeloma cells and is believed to participate in the pathogenesis of chronic autoimmune diseases and postmenopausal osteoporosis. IL-6 has been recently shown to possess three topologically distinct receptor binding sites: site 1 for binding to the subunit specific chain IL-6R alpha and sites 2 and 3 for the interaction with two subunits of the signaling chain gp130. We have generated a set of IL-6 variants that behave as potent cytokine receptor super-antagonists carrying substitutions that abolish interaction with gp130 at either site 2 alone (site 2 antagonist) or at both sites 2 and 3 (site 2 + 3 antagonist). In addition, substitutions have been introduced in site 1 that lead to variable increases in binding for IL-6R alpha up to 70-fold. IL-6 super-antagonists inhibit wild-type cytokine activity with efficacy proportional to the increase in receptor binding on a variety of human call lines of different origin, and the most potent molecules display full antagonism at low molar excess to wild-type IL-6. When tested on a representative set of IL-6-dependent human myeloma cell lines, although site 2 super-antagonists were in general quite effective, only the site 2 + 3 antagonist Sant7 showed antagonism on the full spectrum of cells tested. In conclusion, IL-6 super-antagonists are a useful tool for the study of myeloma in vitro and might constitute, in particular Sant7, effective IL-6 blocking agents in vivo.

Ciliary neurotrophic factor (CNTF) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) potentiate the elevation of serum corticosterone induced by suboptimal doses of interleukin-1 (IL-1). CNTF also potentiates IL-1-induced serum IL-6. Here, we report that four other cytokines (leukemia inhibitory factor [LIF], oncostatin M [OSM], interleukin-11 and cardiotrophin-1) also potentiated the elevation of serum corticosterone and IL-6 levels induced by IL-1. Furthermore, all the six cytokines studied induced the acute-phase protein serum amyloid A when administered alone. Because these cytokines differ both in structure and in function, but share gp130 as a subunit of their receptors, these results indicate that signaling through gp130 mediates potentiation of IL-1 activities. The potentiation of IL-1-induced serum corticosterone levels is not a consequence of the increased serum IL-6 observed after IL-1 administration. In fact, in IL-6 deficient mice, IL-1 increased serum corticosterone to a level comparable to that observed in wild-type mice. Thus, either endogenous IL-6 does not mediate IL-1-induced corticosterone increase, or its role may be fulfilled by other cytokines. To the extent that gp130-dependent cytokines may serve this role, they may be important feedback regulators of inflammation through the activation of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis and the potentiation of acute-phase protein synthesis.

Phage display of proteins can be used to study ligand-receptor interaction and for the affinity-maturation of binding sites in polypeptide hormones and/or cytokines. We have expressed human interleukin-6 (hIL-6) on M13 phage in a monovalent fashion as a fusion protein with the phage coat protein, pIII. Phage-displayed hIL-6 is correctly folded, as judged by its ability to interact with conformation-specific anti-hIL-6 monoclonal antibodies (mAb) and with the hIL-6 receptor complex in vitro. We set up an experimental protocol for the efficient affinity selection of hIL-6 phage using the extracellular portion of the hIL-6 receptor alpha (hIL-6R alpha) fixed on a solid phase. This system was used to affinity-purify from a library of hIL-6 variants, in which four residues in the predicted D-helix of the cytokine were fully randomized, mutants binding hIL-6R alpha with higher efficiency than the wild type. When the best-binder variant Q175I/Q183A was combined with a previously identified superbinder S176R [Savino et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 90 (1993) 4067-4071], a triple-substitution mutant Q175I/S176R/Q183A (hIL-6IRA) was obtained with a fivefold increased hIL-6R alpha binding and a 2.5-fold enhanced biological activity.

The helical cytokine interleukin-6 (IL-6) assembles a multiprotein receptor complex. The starting event in the activation of intracellular signaling is the binding of the IL-6/IL-6R alpha subcomplex to two gp130 chains. The homodimerization of gp130 is triggered by two distinct and independent regions of IL-6 called sites 2 and 3. Several IL-6 antagonists have been obtained that affect signaling, but not IL-6 IL-6R alpha subcomplex formation. In this paper, we analyze in detail the impact of these antagonists on gp130 binding and dimerization and show that each signaling variant affects gp130 dimerization in vitro and that biological activity on cells decreases in precise parallel to the decrease in gp130 dimerization in vitro. All IL-6 antagonists can be classified into two groups, mapping at either site 2 or 3 in correspondence to their mode of interaction with gp130. We found that site 3 is a large region, which includes residues at the beginning of helix D spatially flanked by residues in the putative AB loop and located at one extremity of the cytokine 4-helix bundle. Interestingly, in leukemia inhibitory factor, another cytokine that signals through gp130, site 3, is topologically conserved but has evolved to bind leukemia inhibitory factor receptor.

The helical cytokine interleukin (IL) 6 and its specific binding subunit IL-6R alpha form a 1:1 complex which, by promoting homodimerization of the signalling subunit gp130 on the surface of target cells, triggers intracellular responses. We expressed differently tagged forms of gp130 and used them in solution-phase binding assays to show that the soluble extracellular domains of gp130 undergo dimerization in the absence of membranes. In vitro receptor assembly reactions were also performed in the presence of two sets of IL-6 variants carrying amino acid substitutions in two distinct areas of the cytokine surface (site 2, comprising exposed residues in the A and C helices, and site 3, in the terminal part of the CD loop). The binding affinity to IL-6R alpha of these variants is normal but their biological activity is poor or absent. We demonstrate here that both the site 2 and site 3 IL-6 variants complexed with IL-6R alpha bind a single gp130 molecule but are unable to dimerize it, whereas the combined site 2/3 variants lose the ability to interact with gp130. The binding properties of these variants in vitro, and the result of using a neutralizing monoclonal antibody directed against site 3, lead to the conclusion that gp130 dimer is formed through direct binding at two independent and differently oriented sites on IL-6. Immunoprecipitation experiments further reveal that the fully assembled receptor complex is composed of two IL-6, two IL-6R alpha and two gp130 molecules. We propose here a model representing the IL-6 receptor complex as hexameric, which might be common to other helical cytokines.

Oncostatin M (OM) and interleukin 6 (IL-6) are functionally related cytokines, which trigger similar biological responses because they share gp130 as a common signal transducing transmembrane receptor. While IL-6 recruits gp130 only upon binding to its specific receptor subunit (IL-6R alpha), reconstitution and cross-linking experiments on cell membranes suggest that OM can directly interact with gp130 and that this interaction is necessary but not sufficient to stimulate cells. However, the issue of the direct binding between gp130 and OM, in the absence of any additional membrane component, remained essentially unclarified. In this paper we show that, uniquely among the family of cytokines that transduce through gp130, OM directly binds in vitro with a 10(-8) M affinity sgp130, a soluble form of gp130. Moreover, titration of sgp130 with OM inhibits the formation of a ternary complex comprising IL-6, sIL-6R alpha, and sgp130. These in vitro properties of OM are consistent with the additional finding that on human hepatoma Hep3B cells, which express gp130 but not functional OM receptors, OM does not mimic IL-6 activity, but rather behaves, at high doses, as an IL-6 antagonist.

Interleukin-6 (IL-6) drives the sequential assembly of a receptor complex formed by the IL-6 receptor (IL-6R alpha) and the signal transducing subunit, gp130. A model of human IL-6 (hIL-6) was constructed by homology using the structure of bovine granulocyte colony stimulating factor. The modeled cytokine was predicted to interact sequentially with the cytokine binding domains of IL-6R alpha and gp130 bridging them in a way similar to that of the interaction between growth hormone and its homodimeric receptor. Several residues on helices A and C which were predicted as contact points between IL-6 and gp130 and therefore essential for IL-6 signal transduction, were subjected to site-directed mutagenesis individually or in combined form. Interestingly, while single amino acid changes never produced major alterations in IL-6 bioactivity, a subset of double mutants of Y31 and G35 showed a considerable reduction of biological activity and were selectively impaired from associating with gp130 in binding assays in vitro, while they maintained wild-type affinity towards hIL-6-R alpha. More importantly, we demonstrated the antagonistic effect of mutant Y31D/G35F versus wild-type IL-6.