title: Anti-viral effects of interferon administration on sevenband grouper, Epinephelus septemfasciatus.
abstract: Interferon (IFN) plays crucial roles in innate immune responses against viral infections. In the present study, we report cloning and characterization of the IFN gene from the sevenband grouper (Epinephelus septemfasciatus), and the anti-viral effects of its recombinant IFN protein in vivo. The isolated cDNA from sevenband grouper IFN encoded a protein consisting of 178 amino acids, and its first 22 amino acids represented a putative signal peptide. We named the identified sevenband grouper IFN gene as SgIFNa1 based on the result from phylogenetic analysis that categorized the deduced protein sequence into fish IFNa family. The expression of SgIFNa1 mRNA in the head kidney cells was induced by synthetic Poly(I:C), which is known as an inducer of IFN. It has also been confirmed that injection of recombinant SgIFNa1 protein (rSgIFNa1) upregulates expression of the Mx gene, which is known as an IFN-responsive gene, in head kidney cells. Moreover, we observed that preliminarily injection of rSgIFNa1 provided significant protection against a lethal challenge of nervous necrosis virus (NNV), which is a serious disease of sevenband grouper. These results demonstrate that SgIFNa1 has anti-viral activity and the administration of rSgIFNa1 to sevenband grouper is effective in preventing severe symptom development after NNV infection.
authors.affiliation: Cell-Free Science and Technology Research Center, Ehime University, 3 Bunkyo-cho, Matsuyama, Ehime 790-8577, Japan.
authors.forename: Takashi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ohta
authors.forename: Yusuke
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ueda
authors.forename: Katsutoshi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ito
authors.forename: Chiemi
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Miura
authors.forename: Hirofumi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yamashita
authors.forename: Takeshi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Miura
authors.forename: Yuzuru
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Tozawa
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D005393:Fish Diseases / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000276:immunology / Q000821:virology*; D016898:Interferon-alpha / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D030381:Nodaviridae / Q000276:immunology*; D010473:Perciformes; D010802:Phylogeny; D012313:RNA / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D012327:RNA Virus Infections / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000276:immunology / Q000662:veterinary* / Q000821:virology; D011994:Recombinant Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology / Q000627:therapeutic use; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction / Q000662:veterinary; D016415:Sequence Alignment
chemical_list: D016898:Interferon-alpha; D011994:Recombinant Proteins; D012313:RNA