Prospects of AIDS therapy by thymic humoral factor, a thymic hormone.
Research performed in our laboratory has established that thymic humoral factor (THF), a peptide hormone isolated from calf thymus, leads to clonal expansion, differentiation and maturation of T-cell lymphocytes. THF augments the response to T-cell lectins, mixed lymphocyte reactions, graft-versus-host reactivity, antibody response to SRBC, cytotoxic responses and production of interleukin-2. Clinical data based on the use of THF of natural sources in about 200 patients indicate that it regulates differentiation of T-cell precursors, leading to normalization of the ratio between helper and suppressor/cytotoxic subsets. THF reconstitutes the defective cell-mediated immunity in patients affected by various types of neoplasms and suffering from secondary immune deficiencies, as a result of chemo and/or radiotherapy. THF-gamma 2 was purified and synthesized and found to be an octapeptide which retains all the biological activity of the thymus extracts. It is presently available for extensive clinical use.
Department of Cell Biology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.
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D000163:Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome / Q000188:drug therapy*; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D013951:Thymus Hormones / Q000627:therapeutic use*
D013951:Thymus Hormones; C014859:thymic humoral factor