Figure 1

Identification of candidate proteases for IL-6R cleavage based on the cleavage site. (a) Schematic representation of sIL-6R generation via IL-6R proteolysis by ADAM17. The amino acids comprising the stalk region (from Met-310 to Ala-370) are depicted in one letter code in the inset on the right side. Previously described IL-6R cleavage sites attributed to ADAM17 are indicated. (b) Candidate proteases that could cleave the IL-6R between Pro-355 and Ala-356 based on the annotations found in the MEROPS database. For details see Materials and Methods.