Cytokines are small proteins (about 25 kDa) that are released by various cells in the body, usually in response to an activating stimulus, and that induce responses through binding to specific receptors. Cytokines can act in an autocrine manner, affecting the behavior of the cell that releases the cytokine, or in a paracrine manner, affecting adjacent cells. Some cytokines are even stable enough to act in an endocrine manner, affecting distant cells, although this
Fig. 3.25 Cytokine receptors belong to families of receptor proteins, each with a distinctive structure. Many cytokines signal through receptors of the hematopoietin receptor superfamily, named after its first member, the erythropoietin receptor. The hematopoietin receptor superfamily includes homodimeric and heterodimeric receptors, which are subdivided into families on the basis of protein sequence and structure. Examples of these are given in the first three rows. Heterodimeric class I cytokine receptors have an α chain that often defines the ligand specificity of the receptor; they may share with other receptors a common β or γ chain that confers the intracellular signaling function. Heterodimeric class II cytokine receptors have no common chain and include receptors for interferons or interferon-like cytokines. All the cytokine receptors signal through the JAK-STAT pathway. The IL-1 receptor family have extracellular immunoglobulin domains and signal as dimers through TIR domains in their cytoplasmic tails and through MyD88. Other superfamilies of cytokine receptors are the tumor necrosis factor receptor (TNFR) family and the chemokine receptor family, the latter belonging to the very large family of G-protein-coupled receptors. The ligands of the TNFR family act as trimers and may be associated with the cell membrane rather than being secreted.
depends on their ability to enter the circulation and on their half-life in the blood. In an attempt to develop a standardized nomenclature for molecules secreted by, and acting on, leukocytes, many cytokines are called by the name interleukin (IL) followed by a number (for example, IL-1 or IL-2). However, not all cytokines are included in this system; thus students of immunology are still faced with a somewhat confusing and difficult task. The cytokines are listed alphabetically, together with their receptors, in Appendix III.
Cytokines can be grouped by structure into families—the IL-1 family, the hematopoietin superfamily, the interferons (described in Section 3-7), and the TNF family—and their receptors can likewise be grouped (Fig. 3.25). The IL-1 family contains 11 members, notably IL-1α, IL-1β, and IL-18. Most members of this family are produced as inactive proproteins that are cleaved (removing an amino-terminal peptide) to produce the mature cytokine. The exception to this rule is IL-1α, for which both the proprotein and its cleaved forms are biologically active. As discussed earlier, mature IL-1β and IL-18 are produced by macrophages through the action of caspase 1 in response to TLR signaling and inflammasome activation. The IL-1-family receptors have TIR domains in their cytoplasmic tails and signal by the NFκB pathway described earlier for TLRs. The IL-1 receptor functions in concert with a second transmembrane protein, the IL-1 receptor accessory protein (IL1RAP), that is required for IL-1 signal transduction.