Involvement of ras p21 protein in signal-transduction pathways from interleukin 2, interleukin 3, and granulocyte/macrophage colony-stimulating factor, but not from interleukin 4.

The protooncogene ras acts as a component of signal-transduction networks in many kinds of cells. The ras gene product (p21) is a GTP-binding protein, and the activity of the protein is regulated by bound GDP/GTP. Recent studies have shown that a certain class of growth factors stimulates the formation of active p21-GTP complexes in fibroblasts and that oncogene products with enhanced tyrosine kinase activities have a similar effect on ras p21. We have measured the ratio of active GTP-bound p21 to total p21 in several lymphoid and myeloid cell lines in order to understand the role of ras in the proliferation of these cells. Interleukin 2 (IL-2), IL-3, and granulocyte/macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) enhance the formation of the active p21.GTP, whereas IL-4 has no effect on p21-bound GDP/GTP. These results strongly suggest that ras p21 acts as a transducer of signals from IL-2, IL-3, and GM-CSF, but not from IL-4.