The octapeptide corresponding to the region of the highest homology between alpha-interferon and thymosin-alpha 1 effectively competes with both cytokines for common high-affinity receptors on murine thymocytes.

The octapeptide corresponding to human interferon-alpha 2 (Hu IFN-alpha 2) sequence 131-138 has high affinity to murine thymocyte receptors (Kd = 4.2 x 10(-12) M, about 700 receptors per cell). The peptide receptor binding is inhibited by both Hu rIFN-alpha 2 (Ki = 8.6 x 10(-10) M) and thymosin-alpha 1 (TM-alpha 1) (Ki = 3 x 10(-7) M) as well as by the octapeptide homologous to the TM-alpha 1 sequence 16-23 (Ki = 4.5 x 10(-7) M). The peptide from IFN-alpha 2 (131-138) activates murine thymocyte blast transformation at a concentration of 10(-11) M in the presence of 2.5 micrograms/ml of concanavalin A.