Velan B, Cohen S, Grosfeld H, Leitner M, Shafferman A
J Biol Chem. 1985 May 10;260(9):5498-504.
The bovine genome contains a gene family of interferon-alpha s (bIFN-alpha) that consists of at least five distinct members. Four of the bIFN-alpha genes isolated show a high degree of homology (97% in the nucleotide sequence and 93% in amino acid sequence). The overall homology in amino acid sequence of bIFN-alpha to human, murine, and rat IFNs-alpha is approximately 60%. Yet there are amino acid clusters (positions 28-41 and 118-146) which are highly conserved throughout the mammalian evolution and in which the overall homology can be as high as 86%. Within the C terminus conserved cluster there is a sequence containing 9 amino acids completely conserved in 16 mammalian IFNs-alpha and of these, 7 are also shared with a similar domain in some bacterial toxins, implying a common functional role for these domains. One of the genes, IFN-alpha C, was expressed in Escherichia coli. The purified bacterial IFN (specific activity, 2 X 10(8) units/mg) exhibited antiviral activity on bovine cells but no detectable activity was demonstrated on human and simian cells.
牛基因组包含一个α干扰素基因家族（bIFN-α），该家族至少由五个不同成员组成。分离出的四个bIFN-α基因显示出高度同源性（核苷酸序列同源性为97%，氨基酸序列同源性为93%）。bIFN-α氨基酸序列与人类、小鼠和大鼠α干扰素的总体同源性约为60%。然而，存在一些氨基酸簇（第28 - 41位和118 - 146位），在整个哺乳动物进化过程中高度保守，其总体同源性高达86%。在C末端保守簇内，有一个包含9个氨基酸的序列在16种哺乳动物α干扰素中完全保守，其中7个氨基酸也与某些细菌毒素中的类似结构域共享，这意味着这些结构域具有共同的功能作用。其中一个基因，IFN-α C，在大肠杆菌中表达。纯化的细菌干扰素（比活性为2×10⁸单位/毫克）对牛细胞表现出抗病毒活性，但对人类和猿猴细胞未显示出可检测到的活性。
