Human monokine participation in murine thymocyte proliferation

In addition to interleukin 1 (IL-1), the first cytokine described as having co-mitogenic activity for murine thymocytes. There are several cytokines such as interleukin 2 (IL-2), interleukin 6 (IL-6), murine tumor necrosis factor alpha (murine TNF) and interleukin 7 that are now known to induce the proliferation of bulk suspensions of murine thymocytes, either in the presence or in the absence of lectins. In this report, we use thymocytes prepared from Balb/c mice to compare the proliferative response to supernatant (CM) from LPS-induced monocytes with the response to pure recombinant human cytokines, alone or combined. Supernatant from LPS-induced monocytes was prepared as described before.