Induction of immune interferon in mice treated with a bacterial immunopotentiator, OK-432

Interferon‐Inducing Activity of an Immuno‐therapeutic Anticancer Agent, SSM, Prepared from Mycobacterium tuberculosis Strain Aoyama B

“…Lymphatic tissue, particularly lymph nodes and thymus, or macrophages are thought to be a major site of interferon production after stimulation with interferon inducers which specifically produce immune interferon (17,22). Lymphoid tissue is particularly radiosensitive and it is also suppressed by treatment with cortisone acetate (10).…”

“…The viral inhibitory substance in the sera of mice injected with SSM was identified as immune interferon based on its biological, biochemical and immunological properties (17,22,35). The antiviral substance induced by SSM in both BCG-sensitized and unsensitized mice was at least partially inactivated by heating at 56 C for 30 min and by dialyzing against acidic buffer (pH 2.0, 4 C, 24 hr), and completely inactivated by trypsin treatment (200 f-lgfml) at 37 C for 2 hr (Table 4).…”

“…Many immunopotentiators have been developed as immunotherapeutic agents, such as tubercle bacilli (39), hemolytic streptococci (26), Corynebacterium (37), polysaccharides prepared from basidiomycetes (8,13,19,36), plants (27) and yeasts (9), and levamisole (25); some of them have been used clinically with promising results. These agents are shown to induce interferon in the sera of experimental animals (17,(22)(23)(24) and some have been shown to induce interferon in patients with cancer. Such interferon is considered to be a type of immune interferon, because it is very unstable to heat and acid treatment and is produced by immunocompetent cells (17,22).…”

“…These agents are shown to induce interferon in the sera of experimental animals (17,(22)(23)(24) and some have been shown to induce interferon in patients with cancer. Such interferon is considered to be a type of immune interferon, because it is very unstable to heat and acid treatment and is produced by immunocompetent cells (17,22). In addition, some of these interferons induced by immunopotentiators are not neutralized by antiserum against type I interferon (17, 35).…”

Effects of OK-432 activation on the sialidase activities of rat peritoneal macrophages.

“…In attempts to gain further insights into the roles of these sialidases, we have recently studied how the sialidase activities of peritoneal macrophages of the rat are affected when these cells are activated with Chugai,Tokyo). OK-432 is Su strain of Streptococcus pyogenes that has been inactivated with penicillin G (Okamoto et al 1967), and its antitumor effect has been demonstrated both experimentally (Okamoto et al 1967;Matsubara et al 1979;Hojo and Hashimoto 1981) and clinically (Uchida and Hoshino 1980a, b). The results obtained so far are such that OK-432 induces a characteristic timedependent alteration in the activity of plasma membrane sialidase, which may be associated with the appearance of asialo-GM1.…”