Thymosin alpha 1 effects, in vitro, on lymphokine-activated killer cells from patients with primary immunodeficiencies: preliminary results.
Eckert. K K; Schmitt. M M; Garbin. F F; Wahn. U U; Maurer. H R HR
Key Findings
- Patients with primary immunodeficiencies have markedly reduced LAK‑cell activity compared with healthy controls.
- Adding thymosin‑alpha‑1 in vitro raised LAK‑cell activity to about 25‑30% of normal in three out of four tested patients, but had no effect in one.
- LAK‑cell activity correlated with the presence of CD8/CD57 double‑positive lymphocytes, and CD16‑positive cells were lower in patients.
Practical Outcomes
- For most biohackers this result isn’t directly usable – it’s an early lab finding in a specific sick population with no dosage or safety data for healthy people. It hints that thymosin‑alpha‑1 might help certain immune‑deficient cases, but more in‑vivo research is needed before any real‑world protocol can be recommended.
Summary
The study tested thymosin‑alpha‑1 on immune cells from people with primary immunodeficiencies in a lab dish and found it could modestly boost a type of killer cell activity in a few patients, but the effect was small, inconsistent, and only shown in vitro.
Abstract
In patients with primary immunodeficiencies the role of natural killer (NK)- and lymphokine (IL-2)-activated killer (LAK)-cells is not yet satisfactorily established. Using a clonogenic assay with K562 leukemia target cells, we studied their NK- and LAK-cell activity in vitro. Moreover, the effect of thymosin alpha 1 (T alpha 1) on LAK-cell activity was studied in 11 patients with different immunodeficiencies. The results were compared with data of healthy controls (n = 11) and cord blood samples (n = 6). Common variable immunodeficiency patients demonstrated a mean LAK-cell activity of about 65% of normal controls and cord blood samples. The moderately reduced LAK-cell activity was not affected by T alpha 1. In the immunodeficient other patients, low levels of LAK-cell activity with a mean value of 10% of normal controls were seen. The mean LAK-cell activity could be improved by T alpha 1: three patients showed an improvement of their LAK-cell activity up to 25-30% after T alpha 1 administration in vitro, but in one case T alpha 1 was without any effect. Analysis of the expression of the surface markers CD8, CD16, CD57 and CD8/CD57 revealed that only CD16 positive lymphocytes were significantly less in immunodeficient patients. We found a linear correlation between LAK-cell activity and CD8/CD57 double positive lymphocytes in all patients. Our results demonstrate that suppressed LAK-cell activity from immunodeficient patients can be individually improved by T alpha 1. Further in vivo studies should evaluate thymic peptide immunotherapy for individual immunodeficient patients.
Study Information
pubmed
1994
1994-12-01T00:00:00.000Z
10.1016/0192-0561(94)90081-7
19
27