Cloning, expression analyses, and chromosomal location of the porcine interleukin-18 receptor α chain (IL-18Rα)

We cloned and sequenced a cDNA that contains the coding sequence of the porcine interleukin-18 receptor alpha chain (PoIL-18Ralpha). Based on the conserved nucleotide sequences between human (HuIL-18Ralpha) and murine IL-18Ralpha (MuIL-18Ralpha), we performed reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) with total RNA prepared from porcine peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBLs) stimulated with PoIL-12 to clone the cDNA of PoIL-18Ralpha. The open reading frame (ORF) of the PoIL-18Ralpha cDNA is 1620 base pairs (bp) in length and encodes 539 amino acids. The predicted amino acid sequence showed 68.2% and 50.2% identity to the human and murine amino acid sequences, respectively. Stimulation with concanavalin A (ConA) and IL-12, but not with IL-4, was shown to upregulate the expression of IL-18Ralpha mRNA in pig PBLs by RT-PCR analysis. Flow cytometric analysis also demonstrated that IL-18Ralpha was constitutively expressed on PoPBLs, and this expression was augmented by ConA stimulation. Furthermore, the PoIL-18Ralpha gene was mapped by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) to porcine chromosome 3 (3q13-q14), near the location at which the IL-1beta gene had already been mapped. The present results will be helpful for understanding PoIL-18 and interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma)-mediated T helper 1 (Th1) cell development.