Turkey and chicken interleukin-2 cross-react in in vitro proliferation assays despite limited amino acid sequence identity

S Lawson, L Rothwell, P Kaiser

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

We cloned the cDNA of turkey interleukin-2 (IL-2), initially using oligonucleotide primers based on the sequence of the chicken IL-2 gene. Compared with the only other cytokines available for comparison, the interferons (IPN), the coding regions of the turkey and chicken IL-2 genes are much less conserved (86.24% nucleotide identical and 69.93% amino acid identical). The lack of nucleotide conservation was spread across the entire length of the coding region, In comparison, the promoters of the two avian IL-2 genes shared a high degree of identity (95.71% identical over 380 nucleotides). Phylogenetic analysis shows that turkey and chicken IL-2 have diverged to a greater extent than IL-2 from closely related mammalian species, Surprisingly, considering the low level of amino acid identity, including residues known to be important in binding the IL-2 receptor in mammalian species, both turkey and chicken IL-2 cross-react in functional assays.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)161-170
Number of pages10
JournalJournal of Interferon and Cytokine Research
Volume20
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Feb 2000

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