B7-1 Fc, soluble

B7-1 and B7-2 are transmembrane glycoproteins of the immunoglobulin superfamily that are expressed, along with the receptors CD28 and CTLA4, by antigen-presenting cells, and along with these receptors, constitute crucial co-stimulatory pathways for T and B cell regulatory responses. As members of the B7 family, B7-1 and B7-2 play principal roles in immunity, activating immune response and maintaining immune tolerance through engagement with CD28 and CTLA4. Co-stimulatory signals generated by B7-1 and B7-2 interactions with CD28 serve to stimulate T cell activation and prevent anergy through the amplification of T cell receptor (TCR) signaling. In contrast, interactions of the ligands with CTLA-4 serves to maintain T cell homeostasis and self-tolerance through the disruption of stimulatory signaling from B7 isoform bound CD28 complexes, and by inducing powerful inhibitory signals in T cells. B7-1 plays an important role in immune response through its amplification and regulation of T cell activity at peripheral inflammation sites. B7-1, like CTLA-4, is, however, only poorly expressed on resting dendritic cells, and its up-regulation is, therefore, considerably delayed upon immune activation. Conversely, B7-2 and CD28 are constitutively expressed by resting hematopoietic and T cells, respectively, and as a result are able to rapidly induce up-regulation upon immune activation, making them critical to the early co-stimulatory singling of immune response. Both B7-1 and B7-2 have been shown to demonstrate co-stimulatory activity in T-cell proliferation in vitro and elicit enhanced antitumor immune response in vivo. Recombinant Human B7-1 Fc is a homodimeric B7-1 fusion protein, whose monomer contains a total of 441 amino acid residues, consisting of 211 amino acid residues corresponding to the extracellular domain of human B7-1, fused to the Fc portion of human IgG1. The calculated molecular weight of the B7-1 Fc monomer is 50.0 kDa.