Structure
The structure was obtained using NMR. Originally 35 conformers were calculated. This was narrowed to 22 with low energy being the criteria. It was the first helical cytokine receptor's structure to be determined in solution. The molecule has one polymer The structure reveals the nature of binding. A model of the IFNAR2 reveals a predominantly hydrophobic patch on the receptor that interacts with a matching hydrophobic surface on IFN-alpha. An adjacent motif of charged side chains then guides the proteins into a tight complex. The binding interface may account for crossreactivity and ligand specificity of the receptor. The source for experiments was human but was expressed in Escherichia coli.
Read more about this topic: Interferon-alpha/beta Receptor
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