Typically IL-12 plus anti-IL-4 are needed in Th1 induction from naive T cells and IL-4 plus anti-IFN-gamma for Th2, but what about IL-2? Is it also necessary for T cell differentiation?
David Cousins has a fantastic protocol for Th2 differentiation from naive human T cells ( I presume you're talking human cells, right?) Look up Cousins DJ, Lee TH et al, 2002. J Immunol. He adds both IL-2 and IL-4 (as well as anti-IFNg and anti-IL-10) in Th2 skewing conditions and it works really very well. Th1 clearly needs IL-2. Hope this helps.
I did differentiation experiments without IL2 and it works, so you don't need them, but usually it's better to add IL2 after day 3 so it helps them surviving when there is no more TCR stimulation.
You can also add IL2 since the beginning of differentiation, I'm not sure it will change much, it might help Th2 differentiation.
You can use 10 ng/mL IL2
And note that depending on the mouse background, T cells might be biased to Th (ex Bl6) or Th2 (ex BalbC)
The development of effector T cell responses is tightly coupled to clonal expansion. Studies have shown that the link between the commitment to clonal expansion and effector-cell differentiation is remarkably tight; the same duration of antigenic stimulation (2–24 hours) that drove naive CD8 T cells to proliferate was sufficient for them to commit to differentiate into effector cells, tumour-necrosis factor (TNF) and IL-2, and kill infected cells.
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