Modern drug discovery for inflammatory bowel disease: The role of computational methods

Figure 1 A schematic description of the Janus kinase/STAT pathway. 1: Cytokine and cytokine receptor before interaction; 2: Ligand-reception interaction brings about conformational change that recruits the second cytokine receptor to dimerize with the first cytokine receptor; 3: The activated dimeric receptor recruits Janus kinase (JAK); 4: Thereby causing JAK to phosphorylate itself and the cytoplasmic tail of the cytokine receptor on the tyrosine residue; 5: Activated JAK phosphorylates monomeric STAT transcription factor, hence causing it to disengage from its endogenous inhibitor and dimerize; 6: The activated dimeric signal transducer and activator of transcription translocates to the nucleus; 7: Where it binds to a promoter; 8: That causes the gene expression of some inflammatory markers. JAK: Janus kinase; STAT: Signal transducer and activator of transcription.