Evidence for IFN-beta heterogeneity in a substrain of Namalwa cells

A substrain of Namalwa cells, denoted substrain B, was grown in fermentors up to the 100-L scale, and was induced with Sendai virus to produce interferon (IFN). The titer of the crude IFN varied extensively between different batches; part of the variation was caused by a differential expression of IFN-alpha and IFN-beta. More than 80% of the IFN activity was IFN-beta by several criteria. A two-step purification procedure was developed and the resulting preparation had a specific activity of approximately 10(6) U/mg protein. The IFN-beta type was found to be heterogeneous, and could be separated into several components, which probably represented post-translational modifications of one molecule.