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J Biol Chem 2002 Nov 3
Aggarwal S, Ghilardi N, Xie MH, De Sauvage FJ, Gurney AL.
Department of Molecular Biology, Genentech Inc., San Francisco, CA
94080.
Interleukin-17 is a proinflammatory cytokine that is produced by activated T cells.
Despite increasing evidence that high levels of IL-17 are associated with several chronic inflammatory diseases including rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis and multiple sclerosis, the regulation of its expression is not well characterized.
We observe that IL-17 production is increased in response to the recently described cytokine IL-23.
We present evidence that murine IL-23, which is produced by activated dendritic cells, acts on memory T cells, resulting in elevated IL-17 secretion.
IL-23 also induced expression of the related cytokine IL-17F.
IL-23 is a heterodimeric cytokine and shares a subunit, p40, with IL-12.
In contrast to IL-23, IL-12 had only marginal effects on IL-17 production.
These data suggest that during a secondary immune response, IL-23 can promote an activation state with features distinct from the well characterized Th1, and Th2 profiles.