of Medicine, Sendai 980 fapan IL-2, initially discovered for its mitogenic activity on T cells (1), also acts on monocytes (2) . T and B cells express at least two forms of IL-2 receptor (IL-2R): the p55 glycoprotein (IL-2Rtx), which is recognized by the anti-Tac mAb (3), and the p70-75 kD glycoprotein (IL-2RO), which reacts with the TU27 mAb (4) . The p55 chain binds IL-2 with a low affinity (Kd ti10 -g M), the p70-75 chain binds IL-2 with an intermediate affinity (Kd N10'9 M), and both molecules form a noncovalently linked heterodimer that binds IL-2 with high affinity (Kd _10 -12 M) . The response of T or B cells to IL-2 seems to be mediated by p70-75 and not p55 (5, 6) . Human monocytes respond to IL-2 with induction of IL-1 mRNA (7), development oftumoricidal activity (2), and we have recently shown that IL-2 enhances c-fms mRNA expression (Espinoza-Delgado et al., manuscript submitted). The ability of human monocytes to respond to IL-2 indicates the presence of a functional receptor for IL-2 on these cells . However, fresh human monocytes do not express Tac antigen (8), and there are no reports concerning the expression of p70-75 on fresh or IL-2-treated monocytes . We have investigated the surface expression ofp70-75, and its potential role in the cytotoxic response of monocytes to IL-2, using the anti-p75 mAb TU27 (4) . We demonstrated that human monocytes express constitutively high levels of p75 and that TU27 mAb blocks the activation to a cytolytic stage induced by IL-2 but does not block IFN-y-induced, monocyte-mediated cytolysis .
Materials and MethodsCell Culture. Monocytes were purified from leukophoresed PBMC by centrifugal elutriation (9) . The purity of the monocyte preparation used in these studies was 93 t 3 % as assessed by morphology on Giemsa-stained cytocentrifuge preparations and flow cytometry using the monocyte-specific mAb Leu M3 . Cells were cultured in RPMI 1640 (Advanced Biotechnology, Inc ., Columbia, MD), containing penicillin 100 U/ml, streptomycin 100 Ag/ml, 2 MM t.-glutamine, 20 mM Hepes (Gibco Laboratories, Grand Island, NY) and 10% heatinactivated FCS (HyClone Laboratories, Logan, UT) . Recombinant human IL-2 was kindly provided by Cetus Corp., Emeryville, CA . Recombinant human IFN-y was kindly provided by Genentech, Inc ., South San Francisco, CA . LPS levels were less than 12 pg/ml in all reagents and media used .