Various cytokines can induce similar biological effects in one type of cells (shared biological activity - redundancy). However, particular cytokine can also act on different tissues and cell types (multiple biological activity - pleiotropy). The functional redundancy and pleiotropy might be explained by binding of related cytokines to a common subunit of the receptor that have unique signalling capacity. Specificity of signal transduction is presumably controlled by the intracytoplasmic structure of the subunit chain, the level of activity of cytoplasmic signal molecules as well as combinations of the receptor subunits on the different type of cells.
Interleukin 2 (IL-2) and interleukin 12 (IL-12) belong to lympho-hematopoietic cytokines and play a critical role in the promotion and enhancement of cellular response. IL-2 as the second signal of antigenic stimulation facilitates the transition of the cell cycle from phase G1 to phase S and is responsible for the regulation of T lymphocytes proliferation and the activation of cytotoxic T cells, natural killers, macrophages and granulocytes. IL-12 is the dominant factor in T helper cells polarization leading to the secretion of IFN-. Receptors for both of the cytokines (IL-2R or IL-12R) represent class I cytokine receptors composed of multiple subunits. Generally, they contain a similar extracellular conserved motif of four cysteines, and amino acid sequence - WSXWS (interacting directly with ligand) but possess no catalytic domens in the intrinsic tail of the chains. For this reason, to transfer the impact, the association with number of signaling molecules, allowing the activation of the signaling pathways is required. The connections of IL-2R or IL-12R with their ligands recruit receptor-associated cytoplasmic proteins from the JAK family (JAK1/JAK3 or JAK2/TYK2, respectively), which catalyze the phosphorylation of themselves and intrinsic tyrosine residues on the receptor, creating STAT docking sites. This phosphorylated and subsequent dimerised proteins bind rapidly to DNA and activate it. This review, presents the differences and similarities between the signaling pathways triggered by IL-2R or IL-12R ligation.
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