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Nature 284, 316-320 (27 March 1980) | doi:10.1038/284316a0; Accepted 15 February 1980

Synthesis in E. coli of a polypeptide with human leukocyte interferon activity

Shigekazu Nagata, Hideharu Taira, Alan Hall, Lorraine Johnsrud, Michel Streuli, Josef Ecsödi, Werner Boll, Kari Cantell* & Charles Weissmann

  1. Institut für Molekularbiologie I, Universität Zürich, 8093 Zürich, Switzerland
  2. *Central Public Health Laboratory, SF 00280 Helsinki, Finland
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Double-stranded cDNA prepared from the 12S fraction of poly (A) RNA from interferon (IF)-producing human leukocytes was cloned in Escherichia coli using the pBR322 vector. One of the resulting clones had a 910-base pair insert which could hybridise to IF mRNA and was responsible for the production of a polypeptide with biological IF activity. Up to 10,000 units IF activity per g of cells was obtained from some clones.