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Differences of Biodistribution, Pharmacokinetics, and Tumor Targeting between Interleukins 2 and 15

Department of Nuclear Medicine [H. K., C. H. P., J. A. C.], Warren G. Magnuson Clinical Center, Metabolism Branch, Division of Clinical Sciences [T. A. W., Y. T.], National Cancer Institute, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland 20892

Interleukin-2 (IL-2) and interleukin-15 (IL-15) are T-cell tropic factors that share ß and c subunits of their receptors on T/NK-cells. Although these two cytokines share receptor components, the IL-15R molecule is expressed constitutively by various tissue cells, whereas the IL-2R expression is mostly restricted to activated mononuclear cells. Consequently, we postulated that the biodistribution of IL-15 might be different from that of IL-2 and that individual chains play an important role in this respect. This study investigated the differences between IL-2 and IL-15 in pharmacokinetics, biodistribution, and their tumor-targeting abilities. It found that only IL-2 showed specific binding to a protein, ₂-macroglobulin, which may be the reason that IL-2 displays longer blood clearance than IL-15. Upon injection of these cytokines into mice, we observed that IL-15 accumulated significantly more than IL-2 in kidney, spleen, and bone. These are all tissues that express IL-15 receptor but not IL-2 receptor . To evaluate the tumor-targeting ability of each cytokine, we used nude mice xenografted with three A431 tumors, parental and cells transfected with subunit of the receptor for either IL-2 or IL-15.

When examined using radioiodinated IL-2 or IL-15, each cytokine accumulated on the target cells, expressing its respective chain, suggesting that the expression of the chains is sufficient to define specific biodistribution of IL-2 and IL-15, although these cytokines share the ß and c molecules of their receptors. IL-15 displayed better target-specific accumulation and more rapid clearance from the circulation than did IL-2, and thus it can be considered to be a novel and unique therapeutic agent.

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