Abstract
Phylogenetic analysis of type I interferon (IFN) from birds and mammals strongly supported the hypothesis that the gene duplication giving rise to the α and β families of mammalian IFN occurred after the divergence of birds from mammals, whereas the bird IFN that have been designated α and β duplicated independently in the avian lineage. Therefore, IFN designated α and β in birds are not orthologous to those similarly designated in mammals.
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