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Abstract While human IL-10 is active on both human and mouse cells, mouse IL-10 is only active on mouse cells. Viral homologs of IL-10 are carried by a number of different human herpes viruses, apparently serving to modulate the activity of the immune system during viral infection and latency. It is also known that the hIL-10 gene is closely related to the product of the BCRF-1 gene of Epstein-Barr virus (84% homology at the protein level). Interestingly, this protein and hIL-10 are more closely related than hIL-10 and mIL-10. For this reason, BCRF-1 is also called viral IL-10 (vIL-10). Research shows that viral IL-10 shares in vitro activity with the T cell-derived cytokine, IL-10. This information suggests that the Epstein-Barr virus may have acquired the hIL-10 gene during evolution in an attempt to gain survival advantage by inhibiting anti-viral immunity. (15-16) IL-10 is mainly produced by the TH2 subset of CD4+ helper cells. However, it is also produced by some activated B cells, some TH1 cells (in humans), activated macrophages, and some non-hematopoietic sources (e.g., keratinocytes, colon carcinoma |