Programmed death (PD-1) is an immunoinhibitory receptor that belongs to the CD28 family and is expressed on T cells, B cells, monocytes, natural killer cells, and many tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs); PD-1 is a type I membrane protein of 268 amino acids and which structure includes an extracellular IgV domain followed by a transmembrane region and an intracellular tail. The intracellular tail contains two phosphorylation sites located in an immunoreceptor tyrosine-based inhibitory motif and an immunoreceptor tyrosine-based switch motif, which suggests that PD-1 negatively regulates TCR signals. This is consistent with binding of SHP-1 and SHP-2 phosphatases to the cytoplasmic tail of PD-1 upon ligand binding. It has 2 ligands that have been described PD-L1(B7H1) and PD-L2(B7-DC); PD-1 induction on activated T cells occurs in response to PD-L1 or L2 engagement and limits effector T-cell activity in peripheral organs and tissues during inflammation, thus preventing autoimmunity.
Recombinant Human PD-1 produced in HEK293 cells is a polypeptide chain containing 149 amino acids with C-terminal 6×His. A fully biologically active molecule, rhPD-1 has a molecular mass of 30-40 kDa analyzed by reducing SDS-PAGE and is obtained by chromatographic techniques at GenScript.