Model complexes of tumor necrosis factor-alpha with receptors R1 and R2.

The biological activities of tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) are mediated by two different receptors, TNFR1 and TNFR2. To analyze the receptor binding site(s) of TNF-alpha, molecular models have been built of the complexes of TNF-alpha with the extracellular regions of receptors R1 and R2, based on the known crystal structures of TNF-alpha and lymphotoxin bound to R1. The model structure of R2 from residues 18-160 was built by analogy to the crystal structure of R1 in complex with lymphotoxin. The amino acid sequences of R1 and R2 show 27.5% identity over this region and were aligned with five insertions and three deletions. There are 18 conserved cysteines that form disulfides. R2 has lost one pair of cysteines compared with R1, but two new cysteines were modeled as forming a new disulfide bond. Both symmetric and asymmetric trimers of TNF-alpha were used to model the complexes with TNFR1 and R2. An analysis of differences in the model complexes showed good agreement with data on the differential binding of TNF mutants to its two receptors.