Interleukin-4: a prototypic immunoregulatory lymphokine

Abstract

THE IMMUNE RESPONSE involves the participation of a large number of distinct cell types whose functions must be coordinated to insure a response that is appropriate in quality and in magnitude to the eliciting antigenic stimulus. This coordination of function is generally believed to be regulated by the action of T lymphocytes, whose receptors are specific for peptides derived from the eliciting antigen, bound to a groove in a class I or a class II major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecule. Much of the regulatory function of such T cells is mediated by the secretion of a set of potent polypeptides often designated as lymphokines or interleukins (ILs). 1 Those that appear to be principally secreted by immunocompetent cells in response to the interaction of antigen with a specific receptor are listed in Table 1. I will refer to these molecules as “immune recognition-induced lymphokines.”