Translation of lymphocyte mRNA into biologically-active Interleukin 2 in oocytes

A variant line of murine T lymphoma EL4 produces high levels of the lymphokine Interleukin 2 (IL 2) when it is stimulated with phorbol myristate acetate. We have extracted poly A+ RNA from the stimulated cells and injected it into Xenopus laevis oocytes. The injected oocytes synthesize a material with biologic and biochemical properties of murine IL 2. Namely, it stimulates the continued growth of a cloned, cytotoxic T cell line (the T cell growth factor assay) and it chromatographs on a gel filtration column (G-100) with IL 2 produced by the stimulated EL4 line. The RNA responsible for the biologic activity sediments with markers of 11 to 12S in a sucrose gradient. The IL 2 produced by injected oocytes from a given preparation of mRNA is about 1% of the amount produced by the EL4 cells stimulated originally with phorbol myristate acetate. When RNA is extracted and purified from unstimulated EL4 cells it does not induce IL 2 production in oocytes. We conclude that IL 2 is essentially protein in nature, that the protein is coded for by poly A+ mRNA, and that the amount of this mRNA increases significantly after stimulation of the variant EL4 cells with the inducer phorbol myristate acetate.