Lack of Truncated IFITM3 Transcripts in Cells Homozygous for the rs12252-C Variant That is Associated With Severe Influenza Infection.
Makvandi-Nejad S., Laurenson-Schafer H., Wang L., Wellington D., Zhao Y., Jin B., Qin L., Kite K., Moghadam HK., Song C., Clark K., Hublitz P., Townsend AR., Wu H., McMichael AJ., Zhang Y., Dong T.
Interferon-induced transmembrane 3 (IFITM3) is known to restrict the entry of a range of enveloped viruses. The single nucleotide polymorphism rs12252-C within IFITM3 has been shown to be associated with severe influenza A virus infection. It has been suggested that rs12252-C results in expression of a truncated IFITM3 protein lacking the first 21 amino acids. By performing high-throughput RNA sequencing on primary dendritic cells and peripheral blood mononuclear cells isolated from pandemic H1N1 influenza and human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV-1) infected patients we show that full-length IFITM3 mRNA is dominantly expressed (>99%) across all rs12252 genotypes. Full-length IFITM3 protein can be detected in all genotypes.