Abstract
Usually only cells exposed to virus, double-stranded RNA or other inducers synthesize interferon (IFN)1,2. Interferon mRNA appears 1–2 h after induction, peaks at 1.5–20 h and decays with a half life of about 30 min3–6. So far, it has not been determined whether induction of interferon is due to transient stabilization of a rapidly turning-over mRNA or to activation of transcription. To clarify this issue we transformed mouse L cells with a hybrid gene in which the 5′-flanking region of the human IFN-α1 gene was followed by the rabbit β-globin transcription unit. Correctly initiated β-globin RNA appeared only after viral induction, with the kinetics described for interferon mRNA7. Cells transformed with the converse construction, or with the complete rabbit β-globin gene, constitutively produced correctly initiated transcripts; viral infection decreased the level of transcripts. We conclude that induction acts by activating transcription rather than by reducing turnover, and that the regulatory elements are contained in the 5′-flanking region of the interferon gene.
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Weidle, U., Weissmann, C. The 5′-flanking region of a human IFN-α gene mediates viral induction of transcription. Nature 303, 442–446 (1983). https://doi.org/10.1038/303442a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/303442a0
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