Anti-FGFR3 antibody epitopes are functional...
FGFRs are transmembrane glycoproteins belonging to a family of tyrosine kinase receptors. FGFR3 is expressed in sensory neurons and involved in the regulation of injury-related effects in the peripheral nervous system. FGFRs consist of an extracellular region, a hydrophobic transmembrane segment, a cytoplasmic juxtamembrane domain (JMD) which stabilizes the dimers of the receptor , and a tyrosine kinase domain (TKD) which plays important roles in downstream signaling. The suggested target of the anti-FGFR3 antibodies is the intracellular FGFR3 domain. In order to characterize the anti-FGFR3 autoantibodies in terms of their epitopes we aimed for confirming their intracellular target, detecting their epitope(s) more precisely and determining whether clinical patterns are associated with some epitope recognition.