interleukins

Noun

interleukin (plural interleukins)

1. Any of a group of cytokine proteins important in the regulation of lymphocyte function.
   • Indeed, it’s possible to create the full storm of cold symptoms with no cold virus at all, but only a potent cocktail of the so-called inflammatory mediators that the body makes itself[,] among them, cytokines, kinins, prostaglandins and interleukins, powerful little chemical messengers that cause...2010 October 4, Jennifer Ackerman, “How Not to Fight Colds”, in The New York Times