Interleukin-12p40 variant form reduces Interleukin-12p80 secretion.

In this study, we found that activated mouse bone marrow-derived DCs (BMDCs) produced a p40 splice variant form mRNA in addition to the conventional p40 mRNA. This p40 variant mRNA was produced by alternative splicing in exon 5, and possessed a premature stop codon. As a result, the p40 variant protein contained 157 amino acids of the N-terminal part of p40 and an additional 10 novel amino acids. When the p40 variant was expressed in HEK-293T cells, it was not secreted from the cells. To investigate the function of the p40 variant, it was co-expressed with p40 and/or p35. The p40 variant did not affect the secretion of IL-12p40 or IL-12p70, or the function of the secreted p70. In contrast, the secretion of IL-12p80, a homodimeric IL-12 with two p40 subunits, was significantly decreased when the p40 variant was expressed. This new splicing variant p40 may act to fine-tune the function of IL-12p80.
PMID: 31146247 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

Source: Cytokine - May 26, 2019 Category: Molecular Biology Authors: Oshikiri Y, Nara H, Takeda Y, Araki A, Nemoto N, Gazi MY, Saito S, Saitoh S, Nakajima O, Asao H Tags: Cytokine Source Type: research