Immunomodulator acitvity of very low doses of thymulin in mice

Author(s): Daurat, V., Coucet-Jaboeuf, M., Pelegrin, A., Dorfman, P.

Journal/Book: International Journal of Immunotherapy. 1987; III (3): 191-200.

Abstract: The immunopharmacological action of various amounts of thymutin (103 to 1011 ng) was studied on the cellular response inC57BL/6mice by the 51 chromium-release assay. The authors observed a dose-related response from 10-1 to 10 11 ng. The effect of treatment by very small amounts of thymulin (10-1 and 10 11ng) was also observed on the humoral immune response of 6-week-old female NZB mice to sheep red blood cells by the plaque-forming cell technique, the mitogen-induced proliferative responses of these mice by the lymphocyte transformation test after stimulation by ConA and PHA and the cytotoxic activity of their lymphocytes. lt was found that the lowest dose tested (10 11ng per mouse) had significant immunomodulatory activity: a decrease in the cellular response of C57BL/6 mice, an amelioration of the thymus-dependent humoral response of NZB mice and a diminution of the hyper-response of their lymphocytes to ConA and PHA. The results underline the importance of the concentration factor in the study of natural immunomodulators such as thymulin. Whereas other workers have shown that a thymulin dose of 10 ng in C57BL/6 mice stimulates the cellular response and that lower doses have no effect or are immunodepressive, the authors have shown that the very low dose of 10 11ng per mouse is significantly immunodepressive. lt was also found that this same dose has a powerful corrective effect on the immunological disorders of NZB mice. These results strongly suggest that very low doses of thymulin have immunopharmacological action and as such their administration therapeutically can be envisaged at the low physiological level necessary for the immune system to function correctly.

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