Notice of RetractionMolecular Cloning and Sequence Analysis of the Gene Encoding Interleukin-18 of the Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca)

Notice of Retraction

After careful and considered review of the content of this paper by a duly constituted expert committee, this paper has been found to be in violation of IEEE´s Publication Principles.

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Interleukin-18 (IL-18) is a novel proinflammatory cytokine with potent interferon (IFN)-γ inducing activity that plays a crucial biological role in the enhancement of the activity of natural killer cells and cytotoxic T lymphocytes. In the present study, the cloning and sequence analysis of interleukin-18 (IL-18) from the giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) were described. The results showed that the cloned giant panda IL-18 gene was 582 bp in length, encoding a polypeptide of 192 amino acids. Homology analyses indicated that the identity levels of nucleotide and deduced that amino and acid sequences of IL-18 between the giant panda and other species of mammals ranges from 98.6% to 82.5% and from 96.4% to 73.2%, respectively. The functionally important domains and sites that have previously been recognized in other mammals were all observed in the IL-18 sequence of the giant panda. These result proves that the cDNA fragment cloned is indeed the IL-18 molecule with biological activity and can be used in immunological studies of the giant panda.