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Title: MOLECULAR CLONING OF CDNA ENCODING PORCINE INTERLEUKIN-15

Author
item Canals, Ana
item Grimm, David
item Gasbarre, Louis
item Lunney, Joan
item Zarlenga, Dante

Submitted to: Biochimica et Biophysica Acta
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 12/24/1996
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: Interleukin-15 (IL-15) is a newly identified cytokine that shares many of the activities of IL-2 although it may also have distinct biological roles and regulation pathways. Data from several laboratories indicate involvement of IL-15 in first line defense mechanisms against infectious agents. The biology of cytokines in swine has been hampered by a lack of molecular and immunological reagents specific for porcine cyotkines. Herein we have cloned and sequenced a cDNA coding for porcine IL-15. This will allow the quantification of transcription levels of IL-15 during the course of a number of parasitic, viral and bacterial infections, as well as enable the production of an active recombinant protein for use in generating immunological reagents for potential use as a new theraputic cloning of this novel cytokine, IL-15, could lead to important new biological treatments for swine with infectious diseases.

Technical Abstract: Interleukin-15 (IL-15) is a recently identified growth and differentiation factor that shares many of the functions described for IL-2. To study the role of this cytokine in the development of protective immune responses against parasitic diseases of swine, cDNA was generated from a macrophage enriched adherent cell population from peripheral blood mononuclear cells. This cDNA was used for the enzymatic amplification of porcine IL-15 sequence using human IL-15-derived primers. The open-reading frame of the porcine IL-15 cDNA is 486 base pairs in length and encodes a 162 amino acid protein. Comparisons of the predicted swine protein sequence with those predicted from human, bovine and mouse IL-15 cDNA sequences indicate similarities of 82.1, 84.6, and 71.6%, respectively.