This article explains the rationale for development of interferons as therapeutic agents, and describes commercial products available today. It also provides a summary of studies that have been performed with interferons for use as exogenous biological response modifiers in viral infections. Overall, the best data exist for treatment of viral hepatitis B and C, for which interferons are a corne...

nterferons, naturally occuring glycoproteins with molecular weights of approximately 20,000 daltons, possess antiviral, antiproliferative, and immune-stimulating properties. They are classified into 3 antigenically distinct forms that are derived from different cell types. Alpha (or) interferons are derived from leukocytes, beta ([3) interferons from fibroblasts, and gamma (/) interferons from ...

none of the approved immunomodulatory drugs in adults multiple sclerosis (ms) patients have been officially approved for the pediatric patients and are currently used off-label in this population. in this study, we evaluated the effectiveness and tolerability of intramuscular interferon beta1-a (avonex®) and subcutaneously injected interferon beta1-b (betaferon®) in children with definite relap...

Despite their antiviral effect, the in vivo effect of interferons on HIV transmission is difficult to predict, because interferons also activate and recruit HIV-susceptible cells to sites of infection. HIV does not normally induce type I interferons in infected cells, but does if TREX1 is knocked down. Here, we investigated the effect of topical TREX1 knockdown and local interferon production o...

BACKGROUND Type-I interferons, type-II interferons, and the IL-10 family are helical cytokines with similar three-dimensional folds. However, their homologous relationship is difficult to detect on the basis of sequence alone. We have previously described the discovery of the human type-III interferons (IFN lambda-1, -2, -3 or IL-29, IL-28A, IL-28B), which required a combination of manual and c...

Conceptus trophectoderm and uterine luminal epithelial cells interact via endocrine, paracrine, and autocrine modulators to mediate pregnancy recognition and implantation. Pig conceptuses not only release estrogens for pregnancy recognition but also secrete interferons during implantation. Because interferon-stimulated genes are increased by interferons secreted for pregnancy recognition in rum...