Gray P W, Goeddel D V
Nature. 1982 Aug 26;298(5877):859-63. doi: 10.1038/298859a0.
Sequence determination of cloned cDNAs and genes of the three classes of interferon (IFN-alpha, -beta and -gamma) has revealed more than a dozen members of the human IFN-alpha gene family and a single gene for IFN-beta. These genes are found on chromosome 9 and contain no introns. We recently reported that the 146-amino acid sequence of mature IFN-gamma deduced from the nucleotide sequence of a cloned cDNA was quite unrelated to those of the other IFNs, and that the gene for IFN-gamma contains at least one intron. We now describe the isolation, characterization and DNA sequence of the human IFN-gamma gene. It contains three introns, a repetitive DNA element, and is not highly polymorphic. All our evidence to date and the present data suggest that this is the only gene for IFN-gamma and that the resolution of IFN-gamma into two components is probably the result of post-translational processing of the protein.
对三类干扰素（α-干扰素、β-干扰素和γ-干扰素）的克隆cDNA和基因进行序列测定后发现，人类α-干扰素基因家族有十几个成员，而β-干扰素只有一个基因。这些基因位于9号染色体上，不含内含子。我们最近报道，从克隆cDNA的核苷酸序列推导出来的成熟γ-干扰素的146个氨基酸序列与其他干扰素的序列完全不同，而且γ-干扰素基因至少含有一个内含子。我们现在描述人类γ-干扰素基因的分离、特性鉴定及DNA序列。它含有三个内含子、一个重复DNA元件，且多态性不高。我们目前所有的证据以及现有数据表明，这是γ-干扰素的唯一基因，γ-干扰素分成两个组分可能是该蛋白质翻译后加工的结果。
