RT-PCR analysis of the expression of the messages for the α, β, γ IL-2R, and flow cytometry analysis of IL-2R complex expression by BAL T cells isolated from three representative patients with HIV infection. Patients' T cells expressed the messages for the α, β, and γ IL-2R chains. The limited number of T cells available from the BAL of normal subjects prevented the evaluation of the IL-2R messages. In patients with AIDS the CD122 histograms were completely shifted with respect to the control histograms, indicating that the entire T-cell population expresses the IL-2Rβ chain. The γ_c was constitutively expressed while the α chain was expressed by a discrete percentage of lung T cells from case no. 5 (11%).