Faculty Research 1980 - 1989

Gamma-interferon is one of several direct B cell-maturing lymphokines.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1984

Keywords

Antibodies, Antigen-Antibody-Complex, B-Lymphocytes: im, Cell-Line, Interferon-Type-II: im, Lymphokines, Mice, Neoplasms-Experimental: im, Spleen: im, SUPPORT-U-S-GOVT-P-H-S

First Page

801

Last Page

804

JAX Source

Nature. 1984; 309(5971):801-4.

Grant

AI20232, CA35845, CA20408, +

Abstract

Two classes of molecules often released after the interaction of T lymphocytes, macrophages and antigen are B-cell maturation factors (BMF)1-3 and immune (gamma) interferon (IFN-gamma)4-7. BMFs directly induce the maturation of resting B lymphocytes to the state of active immunoglobulin secretion, while IFN-gamma is defined by the reduction of viral infectivity in vitro. However, interferons have been shown to have a variety of effects and they have also been reported both to increase and decrease B-cell differentiation in intact animals and complex cellular mixtures in vitro. Here we show that murine IFN-gamma produced by recombinant DNA technology shows similar biological effects to BMFs from two other sources. All three preparations induce immunoglobulin secretion by both normal resting murine splenic B cells and the comparable B-cell tumour line WEHI-279.1 (refs 1, 3). IFN-gamma and the other two BMFs are not identical, however, as anti-IFN-gamma antibodies block the effects on B cells of IFN-gamma, but not those of the other two lymphokines. IFN-gamma may be one of several molecules with a direct role in driving the maturation of resting B cells to active immunoglobulin secretion.

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