Interleukin 1 alpha
(IL-1A)

A lot

Gene: maps to 2q13-q14 (Lafage M. et al., 1989). It covers 10.2 kb and has 7 exons and 6 introns (Furutani Y. et al., 1986).
mRNA: size: 2-2.3 kb.
Protein: a 159-amino acid (aa), 17-kDa polypeptide derived from a biologically active (Mosley B. et al., 1987) 271-aa, ~35-kDa precursor. IL-1A is the acidic (pI=5) form of interleukin 1, a potent mediator of inflammation and immunity. IL-1A shows only distant homology to IL-1B (26% at the protein level, 45% at the nucleic acid level). The names therefore suggest a relationship that does not really exist. However, in 3D, both forms are spherical proteins devoid of alpha-helical regions, and both forms bind to the same receptor.

Cell lines:

Tumors:
- In a study of 66 paraffin embedded breast tumour specimens, a correlation was found between interleukin-6 and IL-1-alpha immunoreactivity (P<0.05)(Robinson E.K. et al., 1998).

Furutani Y. et al. (1986) Complete nucleotide sequence of the gene for human interleukin 1 alpha. Nucleic Acids Res. 14, 3167-3179.
Lafage M. et al. (1989) The human interleukin-1-alpha gene is located on the long arm of chromosome 2 at band q13. Blood 73, 104-107.
March C.J. et al. (1985) Cloning, sequence and expression of two distinct human interleukin-1 complementary DNAs. Nature 315, 641-647.
Mosley B. et al. (1987) The interleukin-1 receptor binds the human interleukin-1-alpha precursor but not the interleukin-1-beta precursor. J. Biol. Chem. 262, 2941-2944.
Robinson E.K. et al. (1998) Correlation of interleukin 6 with interleukin 1 alpha in human mammary tumours, but not with oestrogen receptor expression. Cytokine 10, 970-976.