Interleukin-2 as a neurotrophic factor for supporting the survival of neurons cultured from various regions of fetal rat brain.

Interleukin(IL)-2 supported the survival and enhanced neurite extension of cultured hippocampal neurons prepared from embryonic 18-day-old rats. This neurotrophic effect was observed at concentrations of 2 to 200 U/ml, and almost all the neurons could survive for more than 2 days in the presence of 200 U/ml of IL-2. This viability-promoting effect of IL-2 on the neurons was completely blocked with anti-IL-2 antibodies. IL-2 also supported the survival of cultured cortical, striatal, and septal neurons. These results indicate that IL-2 has a survival-promoting effect on a wide variety of neurons. On the other hand, IL-2 did not affect the choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) activity of striatal neurons, suggesting that this cytokine does not act as a differentiation factor for striatal cholinergic neurons.