Molecular cloning and expression of feline interleukin-16.
Human IL-16 (hIL-16) is a homotetrameric cytokine with chemotactic properties towards cells expressing the CD4 receptor. This chemotactic cytokine plays an important role in attracting cells of the immune system to the site where CD8+ T-cells were activated for example by a foreign antigen. In addition to the chemotactic activity, hIL-16 also induces expression of IL-2 receptor, increasing the responsiveness to IL-2 and therefore implying a role for specific expansion of the CD4+ T-cell population in an area of induced inflammation. In this report we describe the cloning, sequencing and the expression of feline IL-16 (fIL-16). At the nucleotide level, fIL-16 shows 84.6 and 84.5%, on the amino acid level 93 and 91.5% identity to the human and African green monkey (agm) IL-16, respectively.
Department of Internal Veterinary Medicine, University of Zurich, Switzerland. christi8@vetklinik.unizh.ch
C M
CM
Leutenegger
J B
JB
Huder
R
R
Hofmann-Lehmann
H
H
Lutz
D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D002415:Cats; D002522:Chlorocebus aethiops; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D018076:DNA, Complementary; D015870:Gene Expression; D006801:Humans; D019410:Interleukin-16 / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA
D018076:DNA, Complementary; D019410:Interleukin-16