Department of Virology, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany.
J Interferon Cytokine Res. 2010 Aug;30(8):579-84. doi: 10.1089/jir.2010.0061.
The recently discovered type III interferons (IFNs), also known as IFN-lambda, are part of the early innate immune response against viral infections. The IFN-lambda system closely resembles the type I IFN (IFN-alpha/beta) system in terms of expression after virus infection as well as intracellular signaling and activation of antiviral host factors in susceptible cells. However, in contrast to type I IFN, which signals through a universally expressed cell surface receptor, IFN-lambda uses a distinct receptor complex (IL28R) for signaling, which is expressed on a limited range of cell types. Until recently both the contribution of type III IFN to antiviral resistance as well as the exact nature of IL28R-expressing cells in vivo remained elusive. In this review we discuss data obtained from the experiments with IL28Ralpha(0/0) mice that demonstrated the role of IFN-lambda in viral defense in vivo. We further discuss the experiments that identified the cell types in various organs that express functional IFN-lambda receptors.
最近发现的 III 型干扰素（IFN），也称为 IFN-λ，是抗病毒感染的早期固有免疫反应的一部分。IFN-λ系统在病毒感染后的表达、细胞内信号转导以及易感细胞中抗病毒宿主因子的激活方面与 I 型 IFN（IFN-α/β）系统非常相似。然而，与通过普遍表达的细胞表面受体信号转导的 I 型 IFN 不同，IFN-λ使用独特的受体复合物（IL28R）进行信号转导，该受体仅在有限范围的细胞类型上表达。直到最近，III 型 IFN 对抗病毒抗性的贡献以及体内表达 IL28R 的细胞的确切性质仍不明确。在这篇综述中，我们讨论了从 IL28Ralpha(0/0) 小鼠实验中获得的数据，这些数据证明了 IFN-λ在体内抗病毒防御中的作用。我们进一步讨论了确定各种器官中表达功能性 IFN-λ受体的细胞类型的实验。
