Interleukin 34 (IL-34; also known as uncharacterized protein C16orf77) is secreted as a homodimer consisting of 39 kDa monomers. It belongs to no known cytokine family. Human IL-34 is synthesized as a 242 amino acid (aa) precursor that contains a 20 aa signal sequence and a 222 aa mature chain. The mature chain contains one potential site of N-linked glycosylation. Human IL-34 is 71% identical to mouse IL-34 on the amino acid level.
IL-34 is expressed in various tissues, including the heart, brain, liver, kidney, spleen, thymus, testes, ovary, small intestine, prostate, and colon, and is most abundant in the spleen. The receptor for IL-34 is colony-stimulating factor 1 receptor (CSF-1R). IL-34 stimulates monocyte proliferation. In functional studies, IL-34, like CSF-1, the other ligand for CSF-1R, stimulated phosphorylation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase-1 and -2 (ERK1/2) in human monocytes. In addition, IL-34 promoted the formation of the colony-forming unit-macrophage (CFU-M), a macrophage progenitor, in human bone marrow cultures.
