Different binding of human interferon alpha 1 and alpha 2 to common receptors on human and bovine cells. Studies with recombination interferons produced in Escherichia coli.

Minicells from Escherichia coli DS410 harboring cDNA for human interferon (IFN) alpha 1 or alpha 2 were metabolically labeled with [3H]leucine and the radioactive IFN was purified to homogeneity by immune precipitation with anti-IFN-alpha serum. These preparations of radioactive IFN-alpha 1 and -alpha 2 were used to study the binding on two human (FL and Daudi) and one bovine (MDBK) cell lines. IFN-alpha 2 specifically bound well to both human and bovine cells, while IFN-alpha 1 bound very poorly to human cells but well to bovine cells. Specific binding of radioactive IFN-alpha 2 to these cell lines was completely inhibited by not only nonradioactive IFN-alpha 2 but also IFN-alpha 1, and binding of IFN-alpha 1 to bovine cell was also competed by IFN-alpha 2 as well as IFN-alpha 1, indicating that the receptors for both IFNs are identical. However, 50-100-fold (on human cells) or 4-fold (on bovine cell) more nonradioactive IFN-alpha 1 than -alpha 2 was required to inhibit the binding of radioactive IFN-alpha 2 to the receptors. Scatchard analysis showed that IFN-alpha 1 and -alpha 2 bind to the receptors on human cells with an apparent Kd of greater than 6 X 10(-10) and 3 X 10(-11) M, respectively, while on bovine cells with a Kd of 4.2 X 10(-11) and 1.6 X 10(-11) M, respectively. These results show that the different target cell specificity of IFN-alpha 1 and -alpha 2 in regard to antiviral activity (Streuli, M., Hall, A., Boll, W., Stewart, W. E., II, Nagata, S., and Weissmann, C. (1981) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 78, 2848-2852) is due to the different binding activity of IFN-alpha molecules to their common receptors.