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Review 1
Immunological effects
Avemar has multiple immunological effects.
Increase of blastic transformation: Concanavalin A-induced blastic transformation was examined in the spleen cells of 8 week-old C57B1/6 mice using a 3H-thymidine incorporation test. The animals in the test group received Avemar through gastric tubes for 6 weeks; those in the control group remained untreated. The increase in mitogen-induced 3H-thymidine in-corporation in the splenocytes of the group receiving Avemar was significantly higher than that in the animals of the control group: a finding which underlines Avemar's ability to enhance cellular immune response [4].
The effects of Avemar on the restitution of impaired immune response was modeled in co-isogenic skin transplant (GVHD) experiments on mice made partially immune deficient by thym-ectomy. The C57Bl/10 and B10LP mouse strains differ only in the 3rd locus, thus skin grafted from one strain to the other will be rejected after approximately three weeks unlike the custom-ary seven days. When the recipient underwent thymectomy, rejection time was increased to 50 days on average. Avemar treatment improved the maturation and differentiation of bone marrow lymphocytes and significantly reduced the rejection time of the skin graft, thus shortening the survival time of the skin grafts of mice subjected to both thymectomy and treatment.
This indicates that Avemar significantly reduces the immune deficiency caused by thymectomy [4], and provides further evidence of the stimulatory effect of Avemar on cellular immune response. This gains further significance from the fact that the organism's natural anti-tumor immune response is based largely on the functioning of the "cellular" immune system.
The observed immunological effects encouraged the re-searchers to test the effects of Avemar not only on anti-tumor immune response, but in other immunological models as well. The experimental induction of 'adjuvant' arthritis in rats is one of the most widely used models to test human rheumatoid arthritis. The efficacity of Avemar in these experiements was all but equal to that of the drugs indomethacin and dexa-methasone. Taking into account the fact that, as compared with non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID) and steroids, Avemar has no side effects, Avemar provides a promising alternative in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. This possibility is supported by the results of a pilot-scale clinical study.
The effect of Avemar on autoantibody levels was also measured in mice with experimentally induced SLE (systemic lupus erythematosus). The results demonstrated a significant decrease in the levels of all the antibodies tested, and the inhibitory effect of Avemar on autoantibody production was still detectable even one month after the completion of treatment - in fact, production continued to decrease in the case of several antibodies [17]. The same experiment provided further results, notably an observation of a change in the ratio of Th1/Th2 cytokine production with the reduction in autoantibody production in the background. Avemar caused a reduction in Th2 cytokine production while simultaneously increasing the production of Th1 cytokines. While Th1 cytokines help to regulate and 'ex-ecute' cellular immune response, Th2 cytokines are parts of humoral response, which may very well account for the effic-iency of Avemar in combatting both autoimmune diseases and human cancers. The inhibition of humoral immune response is beneficial in the treatment of autoimmune diseases, while the enhancement of the cellular immune response helps in defeating malignant tumors.
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