A classification for the interferon-tau

An attempt has been made to provide a rational organization for the many in terferon-tau (IFN-tau) sequences entered in GenBank based on phylogenetic a nalysis and common amino acid substitutions, which might form the basis for a universal nomenclature scheme. Over the 13 years since these genes were first discovered, large numbers of cDNA and gene sequences have been report ed, and there is reason to suspect that representatives of all the major ov ine and bovine forms have now been described. The data are consistent with the presence of many genes and also allelic variants in sheep and cattle an alogous to what has been observed for the IFN-alpha in the human. Future va riants should be easily accommodated into the scheme outlined here. A flexi ble system of nomenclature, based on that used for HuIFN, is needed to prov ide a common base for comparison between research done in different laborat ories and to assign relative biologic potencies to these molecules.