Abstract
Sequence determination of cloned cDNAs and genes of the three classes of interferon (IFN-α, –β and –γ) has revealed more than a dozen members of the human IFN-α gene family1–7 and a single gene for IFN-β4,8–14. These genes are found on chromosome 9 (ref. 15) and contain no introns1,5–7,11–14. We recently reported16 that the 146-amino acid sequence of mature IFN-γ deduced from the nucleotide sequence of a cloned cDNA was quite unrelated to those of the other IFNs, and that the gene for IFN-γ contains at least one intron16. We now describe the isolation, characterization and DNA sequence of the human IFN-γ gene. It contains three introns, a repetitive DNA element, and is not highly polymorphic. All our evidence to date16,17 and the present data suggest that this is the only gene for IFN-γ and that the resolution of IFN-γ into two components18 is probably the result of post-translational processing of the protein.
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Gray, P., Goeddel, D. Structure of the human immune interferon gene. Nature 298, 859–863 (1982). https://doi.org/10.1038/298859a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/298859a0
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