Differential Expression of Interferon Alpha and Beta Induced with Newcastle Disease Virus in Mouse Macrophage Cultures

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Stimulation of mouse macrophages with Newcastle disease virus (NDV) leads to a rapid and high interferon (IFN) response. The magnitude of this response is influenced by the mouse genotype. We have analysed NDV-induced IFN production at the protein and mRNA levels in two different populations of macrophages derived from high producer C57BL/6 and ''low producer'' BABL/c mice in vitro. The data indicate that bone marrow and peritoneal macrophages from both strains grown in the presence of L cell conditioned medium (CM) as a source of macrophage colony-stimulating factor 1 (M-CSF) or purified murine M-CSF produce 10- to 50-fold morE IFN on a per cell basis than cultures of resident peritoneal macrophages. These differences were also found when steady state levels of IFN mRNA were analysed. Differential analysis for the ratios of IFN-.alpha. and IFN-.beta. showed that CM- or M-CSF-cultured macrophages produced equal amounts of both IFN species as determined by specific monoclonal antibodies and hybridization experiments using IFN-.alpha. and IFN-.beta. DNA probes, whereas resident peritoneal macrophages induced under identical conditions produced almost exclusively IFN-.beta.. This suggests a stimulating effect of M-CSF on IFN synthesis in NDV-induced cultures of mouse macrophages, which is in part due to additional activation of IFN-.alpha. gene expression.