Cloning, expression and antiviral activity of mink alpha-interferons.

ABSTRACT: As a key link between innate and adaptive immune responses, the interferon (IFN) system is the first line of defense against viral infection. IFN, and in particular, IFN-?, has been used clinically as an effective therapeutic agent for viral infections. However, different subtypes of IFN-? demonstrate distinct antiviral activity. Therefore, it is important to identify IFN-? subtypes with high antiviral activity for the development of genetically engineered antiviral drugs.In this study, we cloned the genes for 13 IFN-? subtypes from peripheral blood lymphocytes of the mink. The homologies of the 13 mink IFN-? genes were 93.6-99.3% and 88.8-98.4% at the nucleotide and amino acid sequence levels, respectively. In contrast to human and canine IFN-? subtypes, most mink IFN-? subtypes contained two N-glycosylation sites. We expressed and purified 13 mink IFN-? subtypes in Escherichia coli. The cytopathic effect inhibition assay showed that all the 13 recombinant mink IFN-? subtypes inhibited the propagation of vesicular stomatitis virus in WISH cells, with IFN-?2 and IFN-?12 demonstrating the highest activities. Furthermore, recombinant mink IFN-?2 and IFN-?12 significantly suppressed the propagation of canine distemper virus in Vero cells, with IFN-?2 demonstrating the highest activity.We identified the mink IFN-?2 subtype as a promising candidate for the development of effective antiviral drugs.

SUBMITTER: Zhang HL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4353462 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature