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.
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Department of Cell Biology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.
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