Fietta Pieranna, Costa Elvira, Delsante Giovanni
Theor Biol Forum. 2014;107(1-2):13-45.
Every nucleated cell can produce and respond to cytokines, extracellular proteic/glycoproteic mediators that constitute a complex, interconnected, and flexible signaling network, addressed to modulate cell behavior and homeostasis through the interaction with high-affinity surface receptors. These messenger molecules, whose main characteristics are potency, pleiotropism, and redundancy, primarily act in autocrine, paracrine, and juxtacrine way, but can also display systemic activity in endocrine-like modality. They are generally classified according to their cellular sources, three-dimensional structure, or biological functions. Among cytokines, interleukins (ILs) represent a fascinating and multifunctional group of immunomodulators that primarily mediate the leukocyte cross-talk (hence the name), and mainly regulate the immune cell proliferation, differentiation, growth, survival, activation, and functions. Up to 38 ILs have been so far identified, numbered according to the order of discovery, and grouped in different subsets, based on distinguishing structural/functional features. Due to their crucial role in regulating inflammation and immune response, ILs are known to be involved in the pathogenesis of human inflammatory/autoimmune diseases. Therefore, they have increasingly attracted great interest as effective or promising therapeutic targets. The biology and functions of the hitherto identified human ILs are reviewed and discussed: in this first section of the article, ILs from IL-1 to IL-19 are presented.
每个有核细胞都能产生并对细胞因子作出反应。细胞因子是细胞外蛋白质/糖蛋白介质，构成一个复杂、相互连接且灵活的信号网络，旨在通过与高亲和力表面受体相互作用来调节细胞行为和体内平衡。这些信使分子的主要特点是效能、多效性和冗余性，主要以自分泌、旁分泌和近分泌方式发挥作用，但也能以内分泌样方式表现出全身活性。它们通常根据细胞来源、三维结构或生物学功能进行分类。在细胞因子中，白细胞介素（ILs）是一类迷人且多功能的免疫调节剂，主要介导白细胞间的相互作用（因此得名），并主要调节免疫细胞的增殖、分化、生长、存活、激活及功能。迄今为止，已鉴定出多达38种白细胞介素，根据发现顺序编号，并根据独特的结构/功能特征分为不同亚组。由于白细胞介素在调节炎症和免疫反应中起关键作用，已知它们参与人类炎症/自身免疫性疾病的发病机制。因此，它们作为有效的或有前景的治疗靶点越来越受到关注。本文对迄今已鉴定的人类白细胞介素的生物学和功能进行综述和讨论：在文章的第一部分，介绍了从白细胞介素-1到白细胞介素-19。
