J. Kennedy et al., MOUSE IL-17 - A CYTOKINE PREFERENTIALLY EXPRESSED BY ALPHA-BETA-TCR-CD8- T-CELLS(CD4), Journal of interferon & cytokine research, 16(8), 1996, pp. 611-617
A novel cytokine originally designated murine CTLA-8 was described as
a cDNA isolated from an activated T cell hybridoma produced by fusing
a mouse cytotoxic T cell clone and a rat T lymphoma, This cDNA, which
contains mRNA instability sequences characteristic of many cytokines,
encoded a putative secreted protein that was homologous to the ORF13 g
ene of Herpesvirus saimiri. The human homolog to this molecule has rec
ently been identified as the proinflammatory cytokine IL-17, We descri
be the isolation of a cDNA encoding mouse IL-17 from a cDNA library ge
nerated from alpha beta TCR+CD4-CD8- thymocytes using a subtraction te
chnique that enriched for activation specific genes, This cDNA shares
87.3% amino acid identity to the previously described murine CTLA-8, C
omparison of murine CTLA-8 to a cDNA we isolated from activated rat sp
lenocytes revealed that murine CTLA-8 is, in fact, the rat homolog of
IL-17, Mouse IL-17 mRNA is specifically expressed by activated alpha b
eta TCR+CD4-CD8- T cells, a small subset with a potentially important
role in immune regulation, Mouse, rat, and human IL-17 can induce IL-6
secretion in mouse stromal cells, indicating that all homologs can re
cognize the mouse receptor.