MONOALLELIC EXPRESSION OF THE INTERLEUKIN-2 LOCUS

The lymphokine interleukin-2 (IL-2) is responsible for autocrine cell cycle progression and regulation of immune responses. Uncontrolled sec retion of IL-2 results in adverse reactions ranging from anergy, to ab errant T cell activation, to autoimmunity. With the use of fluorescent in situ hybridization and single-cell polymerase chain reaction in ce lls with different IL-2 alleles; IL-2 expression in mature thymocytes and T cells was found to be tightly controlled by monoallelic expressi on. Because IL-2 is encoded at a nonimprinted autosomal locus, this re sult represents an unusual regulatory mode for controlling the precise expression of a single gene.