AccessMyLibrary provides FREE access to over 30 million articles from top publications available through your library.
Create a link to this page
Copy and paste this link tag into your Web page or blog:
2002 FEB 6 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- by Michael Greer, senior medical writer - Early administration of recombinant interleukin-12 can protect macaques from the simian version of HIV, according to researchers in the United States.
Dr. Aftab A. Ansari and colleagues at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta assessed the benefits of "recombinant rhesus interleukin-12 (rMamu-IL-12) administration during acute simian immunodeficiency virus SIV[subscript]mac251 infection" in their study, published in the February 2002 edition of the Journal of Virology.
High doses of the recombinant cytokine enabled treated animals to survive SIV infection, Ansari and coauthors found.
Eight rhesus macaques were given rMamu-IL-12 before and after infection with SIV[subscript]mac251. All animals given the highest doses of the cytokine survived at least 20 months after infection, study data showed, while 3 of the 4 animals treated with low doses and all 4 control animals died within 10 months.
Macaques treated with high rMamu-IL-12 doses showed increased levels of both mature and immature cytotoxic T lymphocytes, with lower plasma and lymph node viral loads compared with other animals, the researchers said. Moreover, high doses of the cytokine enabled animals to maintain high populations of memory T cells, which were correlated with longer survival.
Long-term survival was also linked to sustained activity from SIV ...
Source: HighBeam Research, Early Recombinant Interleukin-12 Treatment May Provide...