The role of interleukin-8 in inflammatory responses of fish

Abstract

Interleukin-8, a novel chemotactic cytokine, has been shown to play an important role in activation and recruitment of neutrophils, and thus acts as a traffic controller. This study builds upon the breakthrough in cloning several fish cytokine genes including IL-8. The predicted rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss mature interleukin-8 peptide has been produced as a recombinant protein in E. coli; interleukin-8 (riL-8a) and a mutated form lacking a receptor binding motif (riL-8b) were studied initially in vitro and in vivo.