Pedretti E, Passeri B, Amadori M, Isola P, Di Pede P, Telera A, Vescovini R, Quintavalla F, Pistello M
Department of Animal Welfare and Immunoprophylaxis, Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale, via A. Bianchi 9, 25124 Brescia, Italy.
Vet Immunol Immunopathol. 2006 Feb 15;109(3-4):245-54. doi: 10.1016/j.vetimm.2005.08.020. Epub 2005 Sep 19.
Feline immunodeficiency virus sustains an AIDS-like syndrome in cats, which is considered a relevant model for human AIDS. Under precise enrolment requirements, 30 naturally infected cats showing overt disease were included in a trial of low-dose, oral human interferon-alpha treatment. Twenty-four of them received 10 IU/Kg of human interferon-alpha and 6 placebo only on a daily basis under veterinary supervision. The low-dose human interferon-alpha treatment significantly prolonged the survival of virus-infected cats (p<0.01) and brought to a rapid improvement of disease conditions in the infected hosts. Amelioration of clinical conditions was neither correlated with plasma viremia, nor with proviral load in leukocytes. A good survival of CD4+ T cells and a slow increase of CD8+ T cells were also observed in human interferon-alpha-treated cats. Interestingly, the improvement of the total leukocyte counts showed a much stronger correlation with the recovery from serious opportunistic infections. As shown in other models of low-dose interferon-alpha treatment, there was a rapid regression of overt immunopathological conditions in virus-infected cats. This hints at a major role of interferon-alpha in the control circuits of inflammatory cytokines, which was probably the very foundation of the improved clinical score and survival despite the unabated persistence of virus and virus-infected cells.
猫免疫缺陷病毒会使猫患上类似艾滋病的综合征，这被认为是人类艾滋病的一个相关模型。在精确的入组要求下，30只出现明显疾病的自然感染猫被纳入一项低剂量口服人α干扰素治疗试验。其中24只猫每天在兽医监督下接受10 IU/Kg的人α干扰素治疗，6只猫仅接受安慰剂治疗。低剂量人α干扰素治疗显著延长了病毒感染猫的存活时间（p<0.01），并使感染宿主的疾病状况迅速改善。临床状况的改善既与血浆病毒血症无关，也与白细胞中的前病毒载量无关。在接受人α干扰素治疗的猫中还观察到CD4+T细胞存活良好，CD8+T细胞缓慢增加。有趣的是，总白细胞计数的改善与严重机会性感染的恢复有更强的相关性。正如在其他低剂量α干扰素治疗模型中所示，病毒感染猫的明显免疫病理状况迅速消退。这暗示了α干扰素在炎症细胞因子控制回路中的主要作用，这可能是尽管病毒和病毒感染细胞持续存在但临床评分和存活率提高的根本原因。
