Studies with purified human gamma interferon

Cellular Immunity and the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome: Failure to Secrete Lymphokines and Gamma Interferon

“…As mentioned previously, amongst IFN-y's key effects is induction of macrophage la expression [38,39], a key step in the initiation of T-ccll acti vation [29,30]. Other effects of IFN-y on mononuclear phagocytes include enhanced Fc receptor expression [41,53], priming for tumoricidal activity [54], and release of IL-1 [55], Effects on T lymphocytes include induc tion of IL-2 receptors and augmented cyto toxic and natural killer cell activities [56,57], Although IL-2 does not directly activate macrophages in vitro, it does display impor tant immunoenhancing activities including promotion ofT-cell proliferation [18,19,35,58] and stimulation of IFN-y secretion [35][36][37], Given the broad immunoregulatory and antimicrobial-inducing effects of IFN-y [24][25][26], however, deficient production may ex plain why AIDS patients develop, fail to erad icate, and succumb to opportunistic infec tions which require an intact cell-mediated host immune response for effective resolu tion.…”