A47
IDENTIFICATION OF INTERLEUKIN-10 (IL-10) IN THE PEKIN DUCK
Q Yao, K Fischer, D Tyrrell, K Gutfreund
University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta
AIMS: Interleukin-10 (IL-10) has been implicated to play a significant role in the immunopathogenesis of chronic viral infections. The aim of this study is to identify the duck IL-10 (DuIL-10) to facilitate the study of T-cell responses in the duck hepatitis B model.
METHODS: The open reading frame of DuIL-10 was obtained by RT-PCR with primers based on chicken sequence and 5' RACE and 3' RACE from concanavalin A and phorbol myristic acid stimulated duck splenocytes.
RESULTS: Sequence analyses revealed an open reading frame encoding a 164 amino acid protein. The predicted protein showed an identity of 73%, 42% and 39% with chicken, human and murine homologues, respectively. The mature IL-10 proteins from all species described to date, including duck, contain four highly conserved cysteine residues. These are implicated in the formation of two intramolelecular disulfide bonds that are required for maintaining the secondary structure of the alpha-helical protein and its biological activity. The predicted DuIL-10 protein contains five of six helices based on comparison with human IL-10.
CONCLUSIONS: The identification of DuIL-10 will allow further studies to elucidate its role in duck T cell responses and in the immunopathogenesis of acute and chronic duck hepatitis B virus infection.