Marsupial cytokines - Structure, function and evolution

The cytokines are an important group of molecules involved in coordinating the many and varied components of the immune system. These molecules have b een extensively studied in model eutherian mammals such as mice but compara tively little is known about the cytokine network of marsupials. Such infor mation will be invaluable in elucidating fundamental aspects of the marsupi al immune system and will also highlight parallels and differences between the immune systems of marsupials and eutherians. Given the importance of th ese goals, our groups have recently begun to tackle this lack of knowledge of the marsupial cytokine system and have met with considerable success in the face of the rapid rate of change of these proteins. This has led to the isolation of the full-length sequences encoding marsupial orthologues of t umour necrosis factor (TNF), lymphotoxins alpha and beta (LT-alpha and beta ), interleukin-1 beta (IL-1 beta), and interleukin-10 (IL-10). Here we revi ew what has been learnt about structural, functional and evolutionary aspec ts of these marsupial cytokines as well as briefly describing more recent w ork in progress and future directions in this field. (C) 2000 Elsevier Scie nce Ltd. All rights reserved.