Before the era of tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs), interferon-alpha (IFN-α) was the treatment of choice in chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). Curiously, some IFN-α treated patients were able to discontinue therapy without disease progression. The aim of this project was to study the immunomodulatory effects of IFN-α in CML patients in prolonged remission and isolate biological markers predicting...

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most prevalent tumors worldwide. Interferon-α (IFN-α) has been widely used in the treatment of HCC, but patients eventually develop resistance. ISG15 ubiquitin-like modifier (ISG15) is a ubiquitin-like protein transcriptionally regulated by IFN-α which shows antivirus and antitumor activities. However, the exact role of ISG15 is unknown. In the prese...

Interferon-α (IFN-α) is a natural choice for the treatment of hepatitis C, but half of the chronically infected individuals do not achieve sustained clearance of hepatitis C virus (HCV) during treatment with IFN-α alone. The virus can impair IFN-α signaling and cellular factors that have an effect on the viral life cycles. We found that the protein PCBP2 is down-regulated in HCV-replicon contai...

Background: Aging is associated with attenuation of immune responses. Studies show that old people are vulnerable to infectious diseases such as influenza. α-Tocopherol as an immunomodulator affects immune responses. In the present study, the effect of α-tocopherol, on lymphocyte responses i.e. interferon-gamma (IFN-γ), Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha (TNF-α), and nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB)  in elde...

Abstract Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) ranks as the third most frequent cause of cancer-related mortality, indicating urgent need for effective therapies. Glypican-3 (GPC3) is up-regulated in HCC and not expressed normal liver cells, representing a strategic target. Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-modified natural killer (NK) cells are promising immunotherapeutic approach cancer treatment. How...

BACKGROUND The only established therapy for chronic viral delta hepatitis, the most severe form of viral hepatitis is treatment with pegylated-interferon α (Peg IFN α). OBJECTIVES In this study, we aimed to determine the efficacy of pegylated-interferon α 2a (Peg-IFN α 2a) and 2b (Peg IFN α 2b) in the treatment of patients infected with chronic delta hepatitis virus. PATIENTS AND METHODS Th...

Interferons α and β (IFN-α/β) are type I interferons produced by the host to control microbial infections. However, the use of IFN-α to treat hepatitis B virus (HBV) patients generated sustained response to only a minority of patients. By using HBV transgenic mice as a model and by using hydrodynamic injection to introduce HBV DNA into the mouse liver, we studied the effect of IFN-α/β on HBV in...

Interferon (IFN)-λ forms the type III IFN family. Although they signal through distinct receptors, type I (IFN-α/β) and type III IFNs elicit remarkably similar responses in cells. However, in vivo, type III and type I IFN responses are not fully redundant as their respective contribution to the antiviral defense highly depends on virus species. IFN-λ is much more potent than IFN-α/β at controll...