Profile of interleukin-2 production in human mononuclear cells and T-cell lines

Background and objective: interleukin-2 (il-2) as a t helper type 1 (th1) cytokine has an important role in activation, growth and differentiation of several immune cells. moreover, il-2 is known as a pro-inflammatory and anti-tumoral cytokine. in addition, deysregulation of il-2 in some diseases such as autoimmunity has been shown. the present study was conducted to evaluate the patterns of il-2 production in human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (pbmcs) and human leukemic t cells lines (molt-4 and jurkat). materials and methods: human pbmcs and leukemic t cells were cultured in complete rpmi-1640 medium. the cells were then seeded at a density of 106 cells/ml and were incubated with different concentrations of phorbol myristate acetate (pma) (1-25 ng/ml) or phytoheamagglutinin (pha) (2- 10 μg/ml) for 48 hours. then, the cell-conditioned media were collected and used for il-2 assay. statistical comparisons between groups were made by analysis of variance (anova). results: pha/pma significantly and dose-dependently increased il-2 level in human pbmcs and leukemic t cells (molt-4 and jurkat) after 48 hours of incubation compared with untreated control cells. conclusion: we conclude that human pbmcs and leukemic t cells (jurkat and molt-4) could potentially secrete il-2 with different degrees. thus, these cells could offer a proper system to study the mechanisms regulating il-2 production in diseases in which il-2 production is disregulated. also, these cells could be useful for screening the il-2 modulators.