6p50

Structural highlights

Disease

[IL7RA_HUMAN] Defects in IL7R are a cause of severe combined immunodeficiency autosomal recessive T-cell-negative/B-cell-positive/NK-cell-positive (T(-)B(+)NK(+) SCID) [MIM:608971]. A form of severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID), a genetically and clinically heterogeneous group of rare congenital disorders characterized by impairment of both humoral and cell-mediated immunity, leukopenia, and low or absent antibody levels. Patients present in infancy recurrent, persistent infections by opportunistic organisms. The common characteristic of all types of SCID is absence of T-cell-mediated cellular immunity due to a defect in T-cell development.^[1] [:]^{[2] [3] [4]} Genetic variations in IL7R are a cause of susceptibility to multiple sclerosis type 3 (MS3) [MIM:612595]. A multifactorial, inflammatory, demyelinating disease of the central nervous system. Sclerotic lesions are characterized by perivascular infiltration of monocytes and lymphocytes and appear as indurated areas in pathologic specimens (sclerosis in plaques). The pathological mechanism is regarded as an autoimmune attack of the myelin sheat, mediated by both cellular and humoral immunity. Clinical manifestations include visual loss, extra-ocular movement disorders, paresthesias, loss of sensation, weakness, dysarthria, spasticity, ataxia and bladder dysfunction. Genetic and environmental factors influence susceptibility to the disease. Note=A polymorphism at position 244 strongly influences susceptibility to multiple sclerosis. Overtransmission of the major 'C' allele coding for Thr-244 is detected in offspring affected with multiple sclerosis. In vitro analysis of transcripts from minigenes containing either 'C' allele (Thr-244) or 'T' allele (Ile-244) shows that the 'C' allele results in an approximately two-fold increase in the skipping of exon 6, leading to increased production of a soluble form of IL7R. Thus, the multiple sclerosis associated 'C' risk allele of IL7R would probably decrease membrane-bound expression of IL7R. As this risk allele is common in the general population, some additional triggers are probably required for the development and progression of MS.^[5]

Function

[IL7RA_HUMAN] Receptor for interleukin-7. Also acts as a receptor for thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP).

References

1. ↑ Puel A, Ziegler SF, Buckley RH, Leonard WJ. Defective IL7R expression in T(-)B(+)NK(+) severe combined immunodeficiency. Nat Genet. 1998 Dec;20(4):394-7. PMID:9843216 doi:10.1038/3877
2. ↑ Schmutz J, Martin J, Terry A, Couronne O, Grimwood J, Lowry S, Gordon LA, Scott D, Xie G, Huang W, Hellsten U, Tran-Gyamfi M, She X, Prabhakar S, Aerts A, Altherr M, Bajorek E, Black S, Branscomb E, Caoile C, Challacombe JF, Chan YM, Denys M, Detter JC, Escobar J, Flowers D, Fotopulos D, Glavina T, Gomez M, Gonzales E, Goodstein D, Grigoriev I, Groza M, Hammon N, Hawkins T, Haydu L, Israni S, Jett J, Kadner K, Kimball H, Kobayashi A, Lopez F, Lou Y, Martinez D, Medina C, Morgan J, Nandkeshwar R, Noonan JP, Pitluck S, Pollard M, Predki P, Priest J, Ramirez L, Retterer J, Rodriguez A, Rogers S, Salamov A, Salazar A, Thayer N, Tice H, Tsai M, Ustaszewska A, Vo N, Wheeler J, Wu K, Yang J, Dickson M, Cheng JF, Eichler EE, Olsen A, Pennacchio LA, Rokhsar DS, Richardson P, Lucas SM, Myers RM, Rubin EM. The DNA sequence and comparative analysis of human chromosome 5. Nature. 2004 Sep 16;431(7006):268-74. PMID:15372022 doi:10.1038/nature02919
3. ↑ Gerhard DS, Wagner L, Feingold EA, Shenmen CM, Grouse LH, Schuler G, Klein SL, Old S, Rasooly R, Good P, Guyer M, Peck AM, Derge JG, Lipman D, Collins FS, Jang W, Sherry S, Feolo M, Misquitta L, Lee E, Rotmistrovsky K, Greenhut SF, Schaefer CF, Buetow K, Bonner TI, Haussler D, Kent J, Kiekhaus M, Furey T, Brent M, Prange C, Schreiber K, Shapiro N, Bhat NK, Hopkins RF, Hsie F, Driscoll T, Soares MB, Casavant TL, Scheetz TE, Brown-stein MJ, Usdin TB, Toshiyuki S, Carninci P, Piao Y, Dudekula DB, Ko MS, Kawakami K, Suzuki Y, Sugano S, Gruber CE, Smith MR, Simmons B, Moore T, Waterman R, Johnson SL, Ruan Y, Wei CL, Mathavan S, Gunaratne PH, Wu J, Garcia AM, Hulyk SW, Fuh E, Yuan Y, Sneed A, Kowis C, Hodgson A, Muzny DM, McPherson J, Gibbs RA, Fahey J, Helton E, Ketteman M, Madan A, Rodrigues S, Sanchez A, Whiting M, Madari A, Young AC, Wetherby KD, Granite SJ, Kwong PN, Brinkley CP, Pearson RL, Bouffard GG, Blakesly RW, Green ED, Dickson MC, Rodriguez AC, Grimwood J, Schmutz J, Myers RM, Butterfield YS, Griffith M, Griffith OL, Krzywinski MI, Liao N, Morin R, Palmquist D, Petrescu AS, Skalska U, Smailus DE, Stott JM, Schnerch A, Schein JE, Jones SJ, Holt RA, Baross A, Marra MA, Clifton S, Makowski KA, Bosak S, Malek J. The status, quality, and expansion of the NIH full-length cDNA project: the Mammalian Gene Collection (MGC). Genome Res. 2004 Oct;14(10B):2121-7. PMID:15489334 doi:14/10b/2121
4. ↑ Roifman CM, Zhang J, Chitayat D, Sharfe N. A partial deficiency of interleukin-7R alpha is sufficient to abrogate T-cell development and cause severe combined immunodeficiency. Blood. 2000 Oct 15;96(8):2803-7. PMID:11023514
5. ↑ Gregory SG, Schmidt S, Seth P, Oksenberg JR, Hart J, Prokop A, Caillier SJ, Ban M, Goris A, Barcellos LF, Lincoln R, McCauley JL, Sawcer SJ, Compston DA, Dubois B, Hauser SL, Garcia-Blanco MA, Pericak-Vance MA, Haines JL. Interleukin 7 receptor alpha chain (IL7R) shows allelic and functional association with multiple sclerosis. Nat Genet. 2007 Sep;39(9):1083-91. Epub 2007 Jul 29. PMID:17660817 doi:10.1038/ng2103
6. ↑ Hixon JA, Andrews C, Kashi L, Kohnhorst CL, Senkevitch E, Czarra K, Barata JT, Li W, Schneider JP, Walsh STR, Durum SK. New anti-IL-7Ralpha monoclonal antibodies show efficacy against T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia in pre-clinical models. Leukemia. 2019 Aug 22. pii: 10.1038/s41375-019-0531-8. doi:, 10.1038/s41375-019-0531-8. PMID:31439943 doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41375-019-0531-8