In vitro biological activities of glycosylated human interleukin-1alpha, neoglyco IL-1alpha, coupled with N-acetylneuraminic acid.

In the previous study, N-acetylneuraminic acid (NANA) with C9 spacer was chemically coupled to human recombinant (rh) IL-1alpha in order to study the effect of glycosylation on its biological activities, and to develop IL-1 with less deleterious effects. In this study we examined a variety of IL-1 activities in vitro, including proliferative effect on T cells, antiproliferative effect on myeloid leukemic cells and melanoma cells, stimulatory effects on IL-6 synthesis by melanoma cells and PGE2 synthesis by fibroblast cells. NANA-introduced IL-1alpha (NANA-IL-1alpha) exhibited reduced activities about ten times compared with original IL-1alpha in all the activities performed in vitro. The competitive binding of 125I-IL-1alpha to mouse T cells and pre-B cells with unlabeled IL-1alphas suggests the decrease in binding affinities of NANA-IL-1alpha to both type I and type II IL-1 receptors. Therefore, reduced activities of NANA-IL-1alpha well correlated with the decrease in its receptor binding affinities.