Double-Stranded Polynucleotides as Interferon Inducers

Nonviral Interferon Inducers

Interferon production can be stimulated by a great variety of microbial and nonmicrobial agents other than viruses. The nonmicrobial inducers can be divided into polyanions, mitogens, and a miscellaneous category including the various endotoxins and antibiotics. The polyanions appear to require a stable, high molecular weight backbone and a high density of free anionic groups whether they are p...

Interferon production by double-stranded RNA: a comparison of induction by reovirus to that by a synthetic double-stranded polynucleotide.

Activation of target-tissue immune-recognition molecules by double-stranded polynucleotides.

Abnormal expression of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I and class II in various tissues is associated with autoimmune disease. Autoimmune responses can be triggered by viral infections or tissue injuries. We show that the ability of a virus or a tissue injury to increase MHC gene expression is duplicated by any fragment of double-stranded (ds) DNA or dsRNA introduced into the cyto...

Interferon, double-stranded RNA, and protein phosphorylation.

We reported earlier that the addition of double-stranded RNA and ATP increases the endonuclease activity more in an extract of Ehrlich ascites tumor cells which have been treated with an interferon preparation than in a comparable extract from control cells. We report here that the addition of double-stranded RNA to an extract from Ehrlich ascites tumor cells which have been treated with an int...

Structural requirements of double-stranded RNA for the activation of 2',5'-oligo(A) polymerase and protein kinase of interferon-treated HeLa cells.

Addition of double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) to extracts of interferon-treated HeLa cells results in the synthesis of 2’,8-oligo(A) from ATP and in the phosphorylation of a ribosome-associated protein of M, = 72,000. Previously described assays were used to investigate the structural requirements of dsRNA for the activation of these two enzymatic activities. Poly(CG) with different ratios of C/G was...