Palm M, Leroy M, Thomas A, Linden A, Desmecht D
Department of Pathology, University of Liège, B-4000 Liège, Belgium.
J Interferon Cytokine Res. 2007 Feb;27(2):147-55. doi: 10.1089/jir.2006.0119.
A promising way to oppose infectious challenges would be to improve the resistance of the target species through genetic selection. Theoretically, a candidate gene is available against influenza viruses since a resistance trait was fortuitously discovered in the A2G mouse strain. This trait was demonstrated to be correlated with the expression of a specific isoform of the type I interferon (IFN)-dependent protein MX, an isoform coded by a specific allele at the mouse Mx1 locus. Two allelic polymorphisms were described recently in the Sus scrofa homologous gene. In this study, the frequencies and distribution of both alleles were evaluated among European domestic pig and wild boar populations by PCR-RFLP, and the anti-influenza activity conferred by both MX1 isoforms was evaluated in vitro using transfection of Vero cells followed by flow cytometric determination of the fraction of influenza virus-infected cells among MX-producing and MX-nonproducing cell populations. A significant difference in the anti-influenza activity brought by the two MX1 isoforms was demonstrated, which suggests that a significant improvement of innate resistance of pigs by genetic selection might be feasible provided the differences found here in vitro are epidemiologically relevant in vivo.
应对传染性挑战的一种有前景的方法是通过基因选择提高目标物种的抵抗力。从理论上讲，由于在A2G小鼠品系中偶然发现了一种抗性性状，因此存在一种针对流感病毒的候选基因。该性状被证明与I型干扰素（IFN）依赖性蛋白MX的一种特定异构体的表达相关，该异构体由小鼠Mx1基因座上的一个特定等位基因编码。最近在野猪同源基因中描述了两种等位基因多态性。在本研究中，通过PCR-RFLP评估了欧洲家猪和野猪群体中这两个等位基因的频率和分布，并使用Vero细胞转染，随后通过流式细胞术测定产生MX和不产生MX的细胞群体中流感病毒感染细胞的比例，在体外评估了两种MX1异构体赋予的抗流感活性。结果表明，两种MX1异构体带来的抗流感活性存在显著差异，这表明，如果此处体外发现的差异在体内具有流行病学相关性，那么通过基因选择显著提高猪的先天抵抗力可能是可行的。
