Production and in vivo biologic actions of recombinant mouse interferon alpha 2

We have expressed a recombinant mouse interferon alpha (r.Mu-IFN alpha 2) in Escherichia coli under the control of a tryptophan promoter using a synthetic adaptor formed by annealing two partially complementary oligonucleotides which introduced an ATG start codon and re-established the complete coding sequence of the mature IFN alpha 2 protein in the expression vector. Levels of up to 10(7) reference units of Mu-IFN alpha 2 per liter of culture were obtained using this construction. This recombinant mouse interferon alpha 2 exhibited antiviral activity in mice infected with EMC virus and antitumor activity in mice inoculated with Friend leukemia cells in a manner similar to that of natural mouse interferon alpha/beta.