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Human interferon-λ3 is a potent member of the type III interferon family

Abstract

Type III interferon (IFN) or IFN-λ is a recently discovered family of IFNs that signal through the same downstream transcription factors as type I IFN but use a separate receptor complex composed of the IL-10R2 and the unique IFN-λR1 receptor chains. We have established a simple and efficient expression system to produce highly pure and active IFN-λ of the three human IFN-λ isoforms (IFN-λ1, -λ2 and -λ3) and used this to compare the biological activity of the different IFN-λ subtypes. Surprisingly, we found IFN-λ3 to possess the highest specific activity of the human IFN-λ subtypes, exhibiting a twofold higher activity than IFN-λ1 and a 16-fold higher activity than IFN-λ2. Furthermore, in comparison with the commercially available preparations of IFN-λ1 and -λ2, we found our IFN-λ preparation to be superior in activity.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Susanne Vends for expert technical assistance and Søren Paludan for the kind gift of EMCV and VSV. Also, the advice of Preben Blæsild on statistical treatment of data is highly appreciated. The project was supported by the Novo Nordisk Foundation senior research grant to Rune Hartmann and The Danish Medical Research Council (Grant no: 22-04-0704) and JM was supported by a fellowship from the Danish Medical Research Council (Grant no. 271-05-0632) and a grant from the Lundbeck Foundation.

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Correspondence to R Hartmann.

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Supplementary Information accompanies the paper on Genes and Immunity website (http://www.nature.com/gene)

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Dellgren, C., Gad, H., Hamming, O. et al. Human interferon-λ3 is a potent member of the type III interferon family. Genes Immun 10, 125–131 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/gene.2008.87

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