Differentiation between vascular permeability factor and IL-2 in lymphocyte supernatants from patients with minimal-change nephrotic syndrome.

Immunotherapy of cancers with recombinant IL-2 induces a vascular leak syndrome which is mainly due to an increase in vascular permeability. A lymphokine, the vascular permeability factor (VPF), which increases vascular permeability, has been characterized in minimal-change nephrotic syndrome (MCNS) and appeared very similar to IL-2. Here we have undertaken a further characterization of VPF in order to determine how closely related this factor was to human IL-2. Both the IL-2 bioassay and Western blot analysis of the MCNS lymphocyte concentrated supernatants with high VPF activity revealed the presence of low quantities of IL-2. Preparative isoelectrofocusing (IEF) of concentrated supernatants resolved each lymphokine in a separate peak, with apparent pIs of 5.2 for VPF and 7.5-10.1 for IL-2. Since a sensitive IL-2 ELISA failed to exhibit any significant antigenic presence of IL-2 in the IEF fractions with the highest VPF activity, we conclude that VPF activity of the concentrated supernatants is not related to IL-2 nor to a biologically inactive form of IL-2. When concentrated supernatants were subjected to preparative SDS-PAGE, VPF activity was recovered within low mol. wt material (1-12 kD). Immunoadsorption experiments gave definite proof since the complete removal of IL-2 from concentrated supernatants did not affect the VPF activity. Although high amounts of IL-2 increased vascular permeability, our experiments clearly demonstrate that VPF is a lymphokine distinct from IL-2.