Nucleotide and predicted peptide sequence of feline interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma).

Interferon gamma is a pleiotropic cytokine which is now recognised as an important modulator of the immune response. We now report the cloning and sequencing of feline interferon gamma cDNA which was generated by the polymerase chain reaction. At the nucleotide level feline ifn-gamma shares 78% and 63% homology with human and murine cDNA equivalents. At the amino acid level the feline IFN-gamma shares 63% and 43% homology with human and murine homologs respectively.