Interferon-β is an established treatment for patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) but its mechanisms of action are not well understood. Viral infections are a known trigger of MS relapses. Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are key components of the innate immune system, which sense conserved structures of viruses and other pathogens. Effects of interferon-β on mRNA levels of all known human TLRs (TLR...

objective: hla-g is a nonclassical major histocompatibility complex antigen and is expressed as seven isoforms, including four membrane bound (hla-g1 to –g4) and three soluble (hla-g5 to –g7) forms. the pattern of selective expression of hla-g transcripts in tissues shows the existence of a tight transcriptional control on the gene expression. it has been revealed that cytokines including inter...

background to evaluate the strength of association and to determine the best prediction of response in terms of sensitivity and specificity among quantitative baseline hbv-dna levels in blood serum in patients with chronic hepatitis b (chb) infection who treated with interferon-alpha-2b. patients and methods totally, 78 chb patients with serum hbv-dna>105 copies/ml were treated with interferona...

conclusions the rvr is the strongest factor of svr and infection with hcv genotype 2 is significantly associated with rvr. neither biochemical and/or metabolic factors seem to exert influence on rvr. objectives the main aim of this study was to assess the strength of rvr, as a predictive factor of antiviral treatment response. patients and methods using univariate and multivariate analysis, we ...

conclusions our study comprehensively explored the predictive factors of therapeutic effect of administered drugs and analyzed viral relapse during a six-months to six-year follow-up period from china. the svr may not be the perfect endpoint of hcv therapy in chinese people; we recommend 48 weeks after treatment withdrawal as the suitable time point. patients and methods we retrospectively anal...

Interferon was identified in the milk of mice injected with an interferon inducer. The kinetics of interferon appearance in serum and in milk were similar, but maximum concentrations in milk were 10 to 20 percent of those in serum. Interferon administered orally to neonatal mice was detected in their serums. Significantly more newborns survived an oral challenge with vesicular stomatitis virus ...

A mycoplasmal species, Acholeplasma laidlawii, isolated as a contaminant from a fetal lamb kidney cell line, was shown to be associated with the induction of interferon in cultures of ovine peripheral blood leukocytes. Broth cultures of the mycoplasma induced between 20 and 230 U of interferon per ml in leukocytes from two adult ewes. The amount of interferon produced correlated with the inocul...

Thyroid dysfunction has been reported in patients with malignant disease treated with recombinant alpha interferon. Two cases of hypothyroidism in patients with chronic hepatitis C treated with recombinant alpha interferon are reported. In one patient, interferon induced hypothyroidism in the absence of pre-existing thyroid dysfunction and in the other it aggravated a pre-existing thyroid dysfu...

We investigated the effect of tamoxifen, 4-OH tamoxifen, toremifene droloxifene, interferon-alpha2a, interferon-alpha2b and interferon-alpha2c, singly and in combination, for their effect on nitric oxide production by MCF-7 and ZR-75-1 human breast cancer cells. Tamoxifen and 4-OH tamoxifen singly had no effect on nitric oxide production by either cell line. However, treatment with droloxifene ...

Recent trials with interferon, in particular those using pure, recombinant interferon, have provided us with improved data (compared with those obtained in early studies) and show that interferon does hold some promise as a therapeutic agent. When used in the treatment of viral disease, interferon has shown itself to be quite effective in reducing viral titres. While not as effective against ca...