Expression of Interferon‐α and Interferon‐β Genes in Human Lymphoblastoid (Namalwa) Cells

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Abstract
Treatment of human lymphoblastoid (Namalwa) cells with Sendai virus induced the coordinate synthesis of both IFN‐α and IFN‐β interferon mRNAs. One sub‐line of Namalwa cells (WRL) produced no IFN‐β activity, although IFN‐β mRNA was induced and was associated with polysomes. The IFN‐α mRNA was heterogeneous, ranging in size over 1.20–1.35 × 103bases, probably because of variation in the size of the transcribale DNA in the α‐gene family. The IFN‐β mRNA was monodisperse with a size of 1.05 × 103bases. The kinetics of accumulation and decay of both IFN‐α and IFN‐β mRNAs, as assessed by hybridization with cDNA probes, were very similar to those of translatable interferon mRNA, as assessed by translation inXenopusoocytes.Treatment of the cells with butyrate or 5′‐bromodeoxyuridine increased the amount of hybridizable IFN‐α and IFN‐β mRNA about 15‐fold and 4‐fold respectively, again demonstrating coordinate control of IFN‐α and IFN‐β production.