Engineering human interleukin-6 to obtain variants with strongly enhanced bioactivity

Interleukin-6 (IL-6) triggers the formation of a high affinity receptor complex with the ligand binding subunit IL-6R alpha and the signal transducing chain gp130. Since the intracytoplasmic region of the IL-6R alpha does not contribute to signaling, soluble forms of the extracytoplasmic domain (sIL-6R alpha), potentiate IL-6 bioactivity and induce a cytokine-responsive status in cells expressing gp130 only. This observation, together with the detection of high levels of circulating soluble human IL-6R alpha (shIL-6R alpha) in sera, suggests that the hIL-6-shIL-6R alpha complex is an alternative form of the cytokine. Here we describe the generation of human IL-6 (hIL-6) variants with strongly enhanced shIL-6R alpha binding activity and bioactivity. Homology modeling and site-directed mutagenesis of hIL-6 suggested that the binding interface for hIL-6R alpha is constituted by the C-terminal portion of the D-helix and residues contained in the AB loop. Four libraries of hIL-6 mutants were generated by each time fully randomizing four different amino acids in the predicted AB loop. These libraries were displayed monovalently on filamentous phage surface and sorted separately for binding to immobilized shIL-6R alpha. Mutants were selected which, when expressed as soluble proteins, showed a 10- to 40-fold improvement in shIL-6R alpha binding; a further increase (up to 70-fold) was achieved by combining variants isolated from different libraries. Interestingly, high affinity hIL-6 variants show strongly enhanced bioactivity on cells expressing gp130 in the presence of shIL-6R alpha at concentrations similar to those normally found in human sera.