Correlations between in vitro effects of preparations of interferon and its inducers on blood cells in patients with multiple sclerosis.

Abstract

We studied in vitro production of interferon-alpha and interferon-gamma by peripheral blood leukocytes from 15 patients with multiple sclerosis. The priming effects of interferon preparations weakly correlated with interferon-alpha production by leukocytes from patients with multiple sclerosis, but negatively correlated with interferon-gamma production. The effects of interferon inducers in most cases positively correlated with its spontaneous production. We found a weak positive correlation between the priming effect of natural interferon-alpha and the effect of recombinant interferons. There were positive or strong positive correlations between the effects of recombinant interferons on leukocytes from patients with multiple sclerosis. The relationship between the effects of medicinal interferon inducers and interferon preparation varied from negative to strong positive correlations. These data suggest that correlation analysis can be used for dynamic control and elaboration of methods for combined immunotherapy of multiple sclerosis with various interferon preparations or interferon and its inducers.