| abstract |
A soluble AXL variant polypeptide, wherein said polypeptide lacks the AXL transmembrane domain and has a set of amino acid modifications of the wild-type AXL sequence (SEQ ID NO: 1), selected from the group consisting of: 1) Gly32Ser , Asp87Gly, Val92Ala and Gly127Arg, 2) Glu26Gly, Val79Met, Val92Ala and Gly127Glu; and 3) Gly32Ser, Ala72Val, Asp87Gly, Val92Ala and Gly127Arg; wherein said modification increases the binding affinity of the AXL polypeptide to the growth-specific protein 6 (GAS6); and where the position of each amino acid modification is represented as n, and n + 7 is equivalent to the numbering of SEQ ID NO: 1. |