Protein / target
Interleukin-6
Protein at a glance
Biological role
Interleukin-6 receptor binding
Primary system
Immune system
Strongest disease association
asthma
Therapeutic maturity
Clinically validated target
Druggability
Small molecule
Clinical development
3 approved · 3 in clinical development
Research activity
Actively researched
Derived from structured UniProt, Open Targets and literature data on this page.
Protein profile
Canonical identity and biological annotation from UniProt.
Function
Cytokine with a wide variety of biological functions in immunity, tissue regeneration, and metabolism. Binds to IL6R, then the complex associates to the signaling subunit IL6ST/gp130 to trigger the intracellular IL6-signaling pathway (Probable). The interaction with the membrane-bound IL6R and IL6ST stimulates 'classic signaling', whereas the binding of IL6 and soluble IL6R to IL6ST stimulates 'trans-signaling'. Alternatively, 'cluster signaling' occurs when membrane-bound IL6:IL6R complexes on transmitter cells activate IL6ST receptors on neighboring receiver cells (Probable)
Subcellular location
Domains and Gene Ontology detail (102)Hide
Gene Ontology
- Cendoplasmic reticulum lumen
- Cextracellular region
- Cextracellular space
- Cinterleukin-6 receptor complex
- Cplasma membrane
- Fcytokine activity
- Fgrowth factor activity
- Fidentical protein binding
- Finterleukin-6 receptor binding
- Pacute-phase response
- Pautocrine signaling
- Pcell surface receptor signaling pathway via JAK-STAT
Biological roles
What this protein does, drawn together from its UniProt function, Gene Ontology terms and Reactome pathways.
View supporting evidenceHide supporting evidence
Immune signalling
- ·Cytokine with a wide variety of biological functions in immunity, tissue regeneration, a…
- ·interleukin-6 receptor complex
- ·cytokine activity
- ·interleukin-6 receptor binding
Transcriptional regulation
- ·positive regulation of DNA-templated transcription
- ·positive regulation of gene expression
- ·positive regulation of miRNA transcription
- ·positive regulation of transcription by RNA polymerase II
Kinase signalling
- ·positive regulation of peptidyl-serine phosphorylation
- ·positive regulation of peptidyl-tyrosine phosphorylation
- ·Post-translational protein phosphorylation
Apoptosis & cell death
- ·negative regulation of apoptotic process
- ·neutrophil apoptotic process
- ·positive regulation of apoptotic process
- ·positive regulation of type B pancreatic cell apoptotic process
Haemostasis
- ·platelet activation
- ·positive regulation of platelet aggregation
Cell adhesion
- ·positive regulation of extracellular matrix disassembly
View underlying pathways (13)Hide underlying pathways
Concepts derived from UniProt GO Reactome — each badge above shows which sources supported that role.
Interaction neighbourhood
Proteins with the strongest functional or physical association. Node size and line weight reflect STRING confidence; hover or select a partner to inspect one association.
Functional and physical associations from STRING v12.0. Only associations with this protein are drawn — partner-to-partner links are not part of this evidence.
Drugs targeting this protein
Whether each drug engages this protein directly or through a complex, and how many other targets are recorded for it. Direct binders with few recorded targets are listed first.
Interleukin-6 inhibitor
Appears in clinical studies involving heart failure, atherosclerosis, coronary artery disorder, acute myocardial infarction
ChEMBL mechanism, action type and target identity. Open Targets clinical status and indications.
Translational evidence
Why this target matters therapeutically — disease associations, drugs in development, tractability and safety, from Open Targets.
Strongest genetic associations
Human genetic evidence — the most direct causal link between this target and a disease.
Highest-confidence therapeutic associations
Diseases where a drug acting on this target has already reached clinical development.
Highest overall evidence
Remaining associations by Open Targets' aggregated evidence score.
Show all associationsHide all associations
Open Targets ranks 3,888 associations for this target and we store the top 10 by aggregated score. The long tail is largely literature co-mention and RNA-expression evidence, not evidence that this target drives those diseases.
Known drugs · 6 total
Giant Lymph Node Hyperplasia · idiopathic multicentric Castleman disease · anemia
immune system disorder · rheumatoid arthritis · interstitial lung disease
heart failure · atherosclerosis · coronary artery disorder
diabetes mellitus · Crohn disease · rheumatoid arthritis
immune system disorder · cutaneous lupus erythematosus · temporal arteritis
Crohn disease · systemic lupus erythematosus · Crohn disease
Tractability
Safety liabilities
Clinical trials
Trials of drugs that target this protein — reached indirectly through those drugs, so a trial listed here studies the drug, not the protein.
Show remaining trials (3)Hide
ClinicalTrials.gov via the drug-target graph.
Research activity
Papers linked directly to this protein. This is the protein's own literature — descriptor-derived papers are kept separate below.
Most cited
Recent
Europe PMC papers linked directly to this protein.
Forefront confidence
Our own weighting of the evidence behind each disease association. Human genetics and clinical evidence count for most; literature co-mention counts for little, because two entities sharing an abstract is not evidence that one drives the other.
The evidence agreement range shows how closely the independent evidence families agree — it is not a statistical confidence interval, and nothing here is fitted to outcome data. Derived from Open Targets evidence types under Forefront weighting; the underlying per-type scores are shown above so the calculation can be checked.
What's happening now
Recent activity around this target, drawn from one canonical event stream. Every item is reached through a drug that targets this protein, so each event is news about that drug rather than about the protein directly.
Objective event titles are shown unmodified; the event kind and significance line are derived from structured fields. Forefront AttentionEvent stream aggregating Europe PMC Regulatory filings ClinicalTrials.gov.