Encyclopedia of Inflammatory Diseases

Living Edition
| Editors: Michael J. Parnham

Interleukin 2

Living reference work entry
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-0348-0620-6_132-1
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Synonyms

Common gamma chain cytokine; Effector T cell; IL-2 receptor x (IL-2Rα), CD25, Tac antigen; IL-2Rβ, CD122; IL-2Rγ, common gamma chain, γc, CD132; Immune regulation; Lymphokine-activated killer cell; Natural killer cell; Regulatory T cell; T cell growth factor

Definition

In 1976, Gallo and colleagues showed that supernatants of activated T cells contained a factor that induced the proliferation of antigen-activated T cells in vitro (Morgan et al. 1976). This mitogen, then called T-cell growth factor, was subsequently purified, cloned, and named interleukin 2 (IL-2).

IL-2 is a 15-kDa four-α-helix-bundle cytokine that contains a single disulfide bond, which is essential for its biological activity (Malek 2008). IL-2 plays an important role in immune homeostasis and activation as well as in immunity (Boyman and Sprent 2012). It is a member of a cytokine family that includes IL-2, IL-4, IL-7, IL-9, IL-15, and IL-21, which all bind to the common gamma chain (γc) cytokine receptor...

Keywords

Natural Killer Cell TReg Cell Chronic GVHD Vascular Leak Syndrome Common Gamma Chain 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Notes

Acknowledgments

We thank the members of the Boyman laboratory for the critical reading of this article. This work was funded by SNF grants PP00P3-128421 and CRSII3-136203, a National Psoriasis Foundation USA grant, a Zurich Integrative Human Physiology (ZIHP) cooperative project grant, a grant of the Stiftung fuer wissenschaftliche Forschung of the University of Zurich, and a grant of the Novartis Foundation (all to OB).

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© Springer Basel 2014

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of ImmunologyUniversity Hospital ZurichZurichSwitzerland
  2. 2.Allergy Unit, Department of DermatologyUniversity Hospital ZurichZurichSwitzerland