Comparative Study of the Efficacy of Different Forms of Interferon Therapy in the Treatment of Mice Challenged Intranasally with Vesicular Stomatitis Virus (VSV)

Summary

Different forms of interferon therapy, (i) exogenous interferon; (ii) interferon inducers: poly I:C (homopolymer pair of polyriboinosinic acid and polyribocytidylic acid) and COAM (chlorite-oxidized oxyamylose); (iii) peritoneal macrophages treated with interferon; and (iv) peritoneal macrophages treated with interferon inducers (poly I:C and COAM), have been compared in their capacity to protect mice from a lethal intranasal challenge with vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV). All treatment regimens were given by the same route (intraperitoneally) at the same day (5 days after infection, at the time that the clinical symptoms appear) and at comparable doses. All treatment regimens afforded a partial protection. This protection was greatest with poly I:C-treated macrophages. There was no essential difference in the protection conferred by exogenous interferon, COAM, interferon-treated and COAM-treated macrophages. However, poly I:C was therapeutically less effective than poly I:C-treated macrophages and also less active than might have been expected from the titers of interferon that it induced endogenously.