Species Specificity of Type III Interferon Activity and Development of a Sensitive Luciferase-Based Bioassay for Quantitation of Mouse Interferon-λ.

ABSTRACT: The type III interferon (IFN-λ) family includes 4 IFN-λ subtypes in man. In the mouse, only the genes coding for IFN-λ2 and -λ3 are present. Unlike mouse and human type I IFNs (IFN-α/β), which exhibit strong species specificity, type III IFNs were reported to act in a cross-specific manner. We reexamined the cross-specificity and observed that mouse and human IFN-λ exhibit some species specificity, although much less than type I IFNs. Mouse IFN-λ3 displayed clear species specificity, being 25-fold less active in human cells than the closely related mouse IFN-λ2. This specificity likely depends on amino acids in α helices A and F that diverged from other IFN-λ sequences. Human IFN-λ4, in contrast, retained high activity in mouse cells. We next developed a firefly luciferase-based reporter c

SUBMITTER: Jacobs S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6249671 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature