Abstract
Along with recent advances in tumor immunology, it has been widely accepted that natural killer (NK) cells come under one of the lymphocytic subsets and are cytotoxic to tumor cells. These cells are commonly found in not only healthy persons, but slso in tumor bearers. For the past years, our interest was in the understanding of the cytotoxicity of NK cells of head-and-neck tumor bearers. It was revealed that the cytotoxicity of NK cells decreased as tumor grew, although there was predominant cytotoxicity at the initial stages of tumor growth.
The present research was intended to study the in vitro effects of interferon (IFN-α) produced by the tonsil lymphocytes infected with the Newcastle-disease-virus, which is one of the NK activators
The general proceduer was 51Cr-release-assay previously described. After the pretreatment of the lymphocytes with IFN-α for 2 hours, it was found the cytotoxicity of the cells, which were target cells derived from maxillary cancer, increased apparently. This evidence in vitro may draw our attention to the clinical use of IFN for the treatment of malignant tumors.
Further investigation in not only basic, but also applied immunology should be out, because the real mechanism is still unknown.
