Interleukin-1 β Receptor Mediated NGF Synthesis and Secretion from Rat Cortical Astrocytes

The cytokine interleukin-1 (IL-1) is one of the key mediators in the body’s response to microbial invasion, inflammation, immunological reactions and tissue injury (1) and also acts as a growth factor for a variety of cells (2). In the brain, two major sources of IL-1 are neurons and glial cells (3). Administration of IL-1 produces a variety of brain-mediated effects which are presumed to be induced by binding of IL-1 to specific sites with high affinity for type I receptor binding. This binding takes place on the surface of neuronal and non-neuronal (glial and endothelial) cells in the CNS (4), while IL-1 signal transduction occurs through different second messenger pathways that further regulate transcription factors (5,6).