When interferon gamma (IFNG) is produced in mammalian cell lines a
heterogenous population of IFNG polypeptides is obtained due to
C-terminal processing of the IFNG polypeptide. Clearly, this constitutes
a severe problem in that valuable polypeptide material is lost and,
further, it is necessary to carry out time-consuming and cumbersome
purification in order to obtain a homogenous population of active IFNG
polypeptides having the desired length. It has now been found that an
IFNG fragment containing 132 amino acid residues (truncated at the
nucleotide level by introducing a stop-codon after the codon encoding
amino acid residue no. 132) does not undergo C-terminal truncation or, at
least, is not significantly C-terminally truncated. Furthermore, as the
IFNG fragment containing 132 amino acid residues is active, this opens up
the possibility of producing a homogenous active IFNG polypeptide in
eukaryotic host cells, such as CHO cells. More particularly, the present
invention relates to an IFNG polypeptide variant exhibiting IFNG activity
and having the amino acid sequence shown in SEQ ID NO:12. In a highly
preferred embodiment of the invention, the variant comprises at least one
further modification, such as 1-10 further modifications, relative to the
amino acid sequence shown in SEQ ID NO:12. A particular preferred further
modification is E38N+S40T.