0:00
Hello, my name is Leonie
Taams and I'm a professor
of Immune Regulation and
Inflammation at King's
College London.
In this seminar,
I will talk about
interleukin-17 from
clone to clinic.
0:16
The outline of this
seminar is as follows:
First, I will briefly explain
what are interleukins.
I will then touch upon the
interleukin-17 family in
general before delving into
more detail on the IL-17A.
I will discuss its
discovery and I
will talk about its
biological function;
the cells that produce
interleukin-17A,
technologies that can
be used to detect,
IL-17A and I will describe how
IL-17A can be targeted
therapeutically in
inflammatory disease.
0:49
To start off with,
what are interleukins?
0:55
Interleukins or ILs in short,
are cytokines which
are small proteins,
usually less than 20 kilodalton.
These molecules
have hormone-like
function which enables cells
to communicate to each other.
Interleukins can bind to
interleukin receptors
on recipient cells to
mediate cytokine signalling.
Cytokines can function
in an autocrine manner,
which means that a
cytokine acts back on
the cell that produces it
or in a paracrine manner,
which means it acts on
a neighboring cell.
Some cytokines can also work in
a distant manner acting on
cells or organs far away
from the site of origin of
the cytokine in a very similar
manner as hormones do.
1:39
Interleukins were
first thought to
be expressed by leukocytes only.
Leukocytes are white blood cells
and this is what
gave it the name.
However, we now know
that interleukins can
be produced by many
other body cells.
Interleukins can play
a central role in
many different
processes that are
important for the well-functioning
of our immune system,
including effects on
immune cell activation,
differentiation, proliferation,
maturation, migration,
or adhesion.
But interleukins can also
influence non-immune
cell function.
For example, it can have
effects on stromal cells,
bone, liver, heart, brain cells,
basically almost
all, if not all,
cells and tissues
of the body can
be influenced by interleukins.
