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Interferon regulatory factor 3-CL, an isoform of IRF3, antagonizes activity of IRF3

Abstract

Interferon regulatory factor 3 (IRF3), one member of the IRF family, plays a central role in induction of type I interferon (IFN) and regulation of apoptosis. Controlled activity of IRF3 is essential for its functions. During reverse transcription (RT)-PCR to clone the full-length open reading frame (ORF) of IRF3, we cloned a full-length ORF encoding an isoform of IRF3, termed as IRF3-CL, and has a unique carboxyl-terminus of 125 amino acids. IRF3-CL is ubiquitously expressed in distinct cell lines. Overexpression of IRF3-CL inhibits Sendai virus (SeV)-triggered induction of IFN-β and SeV-induced and inhibitor of NF-κB kinase-ε (IKKε)-mediated nuclear translocation of IRF3. When IKKε is overexpressed, IRF3-CL is associated with IRF3. These results suggest that IRF3-CL, the alternative splicing isoform of IRF-3, may function as a negative regulator of IRF3.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Rongjuan Pei for technical help. This work was supported by grants from the China National Human Liver Proteomics Project (2004BA711A19), the China National High-Tech 863 Program (2006AA 02A310), the Natural Science Foundation of Hubei Province of China (2009CDB012) and the Educational Commission of Hubei Province of China (D20091004).

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Correspondence to Lixin Ma or Xinwen Chen.

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Li, C., Ma, L. & Chen, X. Interferon regulatory factor 3-CL, an isoform of IRF3, antagonizes activity of IRF3. Cell Mol Immunol 8, 67–74 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/cmi.2010.55

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