ANNOUNCEMENT

INTERFERON NOMENCLATURE

An international group of scientists was assembled under the sponsorship of the National Instituteof Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the World Health Organization-US National Centre on

Interferon to devise a system for the orderly nomenclature of interferons. The following is an

abbreviated version of the unanimous report from this committee, the full text of which appears inNature, 10 July 1980. Scientists and editors of scientific journals should adopt this nomenclature, toavoid the proliferation of terms for the same substances and the indiscriminate naming of newlydiscovered factors.

The committee accepted the following definition for interferon: "To qualify as an interferon a

factor must be a protein which exerts virus nonspecific, antiviral activity at least in homologous cellsthrough cellular metabolic processes involving synthesis of both RNA and protein."

The preferred abbreviation for interferon is IFN. Each interferon will be identified according toanimal of origin: e.g. human (Hu IFN); murine (Mu IFN); bovine (Bov IFN); rat (Rat IFN);chicken, porcine, felcine, equine interferon, etc. However, it may be necessary in some cases to applygeneric nomenclature: e.g. monkey = Rhesus interferon, etc.; fish = Salmo interferon, etc.; bat =

Taderida interferon, etc.Interferon will be classified into types on the basis of antigenic specificities. The type designations

will be alpha (a), beta (0) and gamma (7), corresponding to previous designations of leukocyte (Le),fibroblast (F), and type II (immune) interferons, respectively. The old terminology of "leukocyte,""fibroblast" and "immune" interferons were, by committee consensus, abolished, as they clearly were

misnomers. Alpha and beta interferons are usually acid-stable and correspond to what have beencalled type I IFNs; gamma interferons are usually acid-labile and correspond to what has been calledtype II IFNs. If there are discovered to be classes of IFN which are not presently recognized, theyshould be designated sequentially IFN-delta, epsilon, etc. Table I. lists the new nomenclature forhuman and murine interferons and the corresponding designations which have been or are beingemployed. Interferon preparations may contain more than one type: for example, interferons derivedfrom human lymphoblastoid cells and interferons from murine fibroblasts contain both IFN-<*andIFN-0. These can be designated as to predominate type. Thus, the interferons presently employed inclinical trials are either HuIFN-aor HuIFN-p, or admixtures therefore.

The committee's recommendations apply at present only to human and murine IFNs, since there isinsufficient information about IFNs from other animal species to allow differentiation into types.Workers using IFNs from other species are encouraged either to attempt preliminary classification

Table I. Old and New Nomenclature for Human and Mouse Interferons

New Nomenclature Old NomenclatureHuman Mouse

IFN- a Le (leukocyte), type I, pH 2 stable, F (fast), C, type I, pH 2 stableforeign cell-induced

IFN- ß F (fibroblast), Fi, type I, pH 2 S (slow), A, B, type 1, pH 2stable stable

IFN- "t IIF (immune), type II, T, pH 2 labile, immune (IIF), type II, pH 2antigen-induced, mitogen-induced labile, T, antigen-induced,

mitogen-induced

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based on antigenic homology with existing antisera specific for human or mouse alpha, beta or

gamma IFNs, or to establish sequence homology with the known types of human and mouseinterferons.It is recognized that there may be size, charge, sequence and other heterogeneities within the

designated IFN types. Molecular weight designations may be indicated in parentheses, e.g. Hu IFN-a(18K) or Mu IFN-0(38K), or subtypes of IFNs based on specific amino acid sequence differences can

be classified as Hu IFN-a,, HuIFN-02> etc.Indication of interferon origin for those that behave antigenically similarly may also be helpful.

Thus, interferon from human lymphoblastoid cells and interferon from human leukocytes are bothclassified antigenically as HuIFN-a, yet these interferons differ in certain amino acids. Therefore, thenomenclature HuIFN-a(Ly) or HuIFN-a(Le) may be used until such time as specific differences inamino acid loci have been established and subtype designations can be assigned. Also, it is now

recognized that there are a number of forms of HuIFN-otthat differ in certain amino acids; eventuallythese may be designated according to specific amino acids and their locations. Schemes for suchdesignation of subtypes of each of the major IFN types will be developed at subsequent meetings ofthe Nomenclature Committee. The next meeting of the Committee will be held in April 1981.Suggestions and comments for consideration by the Committee should be forwarded to theCommittee's Chairman.

William E. Stewart II (Chairman)*J. Edwin Blalock (Galveston, Tx)Derek C. Burke (Coventry)Charles Chany (Paris)June K. Dunnick (Bethesda)Ernesto Falcoff ( Paris)

Robert M. Friedman (Bethesda)George J. Galasso (Bethesda)Wolfgang K. Joklik (Durham, N.C.)Jan T. Vilcek (New York)Julius S. Youngner (Pittsburgh)Kathryn C. Zoon (Bethesda)

* To whom correspondence should be addressed at: Interferon Laboratories, Memorial Sloan-Kettering CancerCenter, 1275 York Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10021, U.S.A.

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This article has been cited by:

1. Gerhard Gross, Wolfgang Bruns, Ulrich Mayr, John Collins. 1982. The identity of interferon-β1 mRNA transcripts inhuman fibroblasts and namalva cells. FEBS Letters 139, 201-204. [CrossRef]

2. TILAHUN YILMA, TRAVIS C. McGUIRE, LANCE E. PERRYMAN. 1982. Preliminary Characterization of EquineInterferons and their Antiviral Activities on Bovine, Ovine, and Human Cells. Journal of Interferon Research 2:3, 363-370.[Abstract] [Full Text PDF] [Full Text PDF with Links]

3. Lois B. Epstein, Nancy H. McManus, Samuel J. Hebert, Judith Woods-Hellman, Diane G. OliverMICROTITER ASSAYFOR ANTIVIRAL EFFECTS OF HUMAN AND MURINE INTERFERON UTILIZING A VERTICAL LIGHTPATH PHOTOMETER FOR QUANTITATION 619-628. [CrossRef]