CONSTRUCTION AND IDENTIFICATION OF RETROVIRAL VECTOR EXPRESSING HUMAN INTERLEUKIN-17 GENE*

Human interleukin 17(IL-17) is a newly found cytokine secreted by activated T lymphocytes. Many of its characteristics remain unknown. To provide a way for understanding its role in immunology and hematology further, we constructed a recombinant retroviral vector pL17SN containing the human IL-17 gene about 1.3kb with the coding region. The constructed retroviral vector packaged in CRIP cells could infect human primary fibroblasts, and could stimulate the primary fibroblasts secreting human GM-CSF and IL-6. The retroviral vector containing the human IL-17 gene we constructed may present an efficient way to understand the biological functions of human IL-17 and to investigate applications of IL-17 in cancer gene therapy.