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Updated: Aug 4, 2026

Vaccinia Virus Infection & Temporal Analysis of Virus Gene Expression: Part 1
Published on: April 8, 2009
A homolog of interleukin-10 is encoded by the poxvirus orf virus
S B Fleming1, C A McCaughan, A E Andrews
1Health Research Council Virus Research Unit and University of Otago Centre for Gene Research, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. steve@sanger.otago.ac.nz
Abstract:
A gene encoding a polypeptide with homology to interleukin-10 (IL-10) has been discovered in the genome of orf virus (OV) strain NZ2, a parapoxvirus that infects sheep, goats, and humans. The predicted polypeptide sequence shows high levels of amino acid identity to IL-10 of sheep (80%), cattle (75%), humans (67%), and mice (64%), as well as IL-10-like proteins of Epstein-Barr virus (63%) and equine herpesvirus (67%). The C-terminal region, comprising two-thirds of the OV protein, is identical to ovine IL-10, which suggests that this gene has been captured from its host sheep during the evolution of OV. The IL-10-like gene is transcribed early. Conditioned medium from COS cells transfected with a eukaryotic expression vector containing the OV IL-10-like gene showed the same biological activity as ovine IL-10 in a murine thymocyte proliferation assay. OV IL-10 is likely to be important in immune evasion by OV, since IL-10 is a multifunctional cytokine that has inhibitory effects on nonspecific immunity and Th1 effector function.
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