Therapy of a fatal murine cytomegalovirus infection with thymic humoral factor (THF-γ2) treated immune spleen cells

Abstract

SUMMARYInfection of mice with murine cytomegalovirus (CM V) presents a model for the study of the role of the immune system in the pathogenesis of human CM V. We performed adoptive transfer experiments to evaluate the prospects for enhancing the anti-viral potential of murine CMV immune spleen cells by THF-y2. Adult BALB/c mice resistant to murine CMV become highly susceptible following immunosuppression by cyclophosphamide. Recipient mice were injected with murine CMV and cyclophosphamide concomitantly, and 24 h later adoptive transfers of syngeneic immune spleen cells were performed. We showed that passive transfers of murine CM V immune spleen cells prevented the development ofa fatal disease in 38'H. of the recipient mice. Daily injections of murine CMV immune donor mice with THF->'2 enhanced considerably (93%) the therapeutic potential of virus-specific immune cells. These experiments provide direct evidence for the antiviral capacity of THF-72 through its immunomodulatory effect on immune T cells.

Effect of synthetic thymic humoral factor (THF-γ2) on T cell activities in immunodeficient ageing mice

“…respectively. It is noteworthy, that the activity orTHF-y2 in old mice, as shown here, appears much greater than that previously reported in studies on neonatally thymectomized miee [12] and on immunosuppressed plasniaeytoma-bearing [32] and cytomegalovirus-infeeted mice [33], in whieh doses of 4x 10 ''or4x IO"-/(g were repeatedly injected lor several days.…”