       Document 0964
 DOCN  M9650964
 TI    Concurrence of high levels of interferons alpha and beta in cord and
       maternal blood and simultaneous presence of interferon in trophoblast in
       an African population.
 DT    9505
 AU    Ebbesen P; Hager H; Norskov-Lauritsen N; Aboagye-Mathiesen G; Zdravkovic
       M; Villadsen J; Liu X; Petersen PM; Bambra C; Nyongo A; et al; Danish
       Cancer Society, Department of Virus and Cancer, Aarhus.
 SO    J Interferon Cytokine Res. 1995 Feb;15(2):123-8. Unique Identifier :
       AIDSLINE MED/96172466
 AB    A high concentration of interferon-alpha (IFN-alpha) (> 5 U/ml) in cord
       blood was used as the criterion for establishing our study group. In a
       collection from deliveries by 269 Kenyan women, 16 such cord samples
       with matching maternal blood and placental biopsies were identified.
       These 16 were studied in detail together with 23 randomly selected among
       those with low cord IFN-alpha levels. The levels of IFN- in retal blood
       correlated with levels in their mothers for both IFN-alpha and beta but
       not for IFN-gamma. IFN-alpha was furthermore demonstrated in villous and
       decidual trophoblast from 15 (94%) placentae from donors with high
       IFN-alpha in the cord blood but not in the placenta of any low IFN level
       donors. In contrast, IFN-beta was not demonstrated in any placenta.
       These observations suggest simultaneous IFN induction in the three
       compartments, transplacental IFN transport, or trophoblast production of
       IFN to both circulations. Looking for IFN inducers, we did serologic
       tests for nonspecific indicators of inflammation and for specific virus
       and protozoan infections, but these showed no relation to elevated IFN
       levels. Immunohistology also revealed no evidence of a number of
       placental infections. The cause of the high levels of IFN-alpha could
       still be infectious but remains unexplained and may be noninfectious.
 DE    Biopsy  C-Reactive Protein/BIOSYNTHESIS  Case-Control Studies
       Comparative Study  Female  Fetal Blood/*IMMUNOLOGY  Human  HIV
       Seronegativity/IMMUNOLOGY  HIV Seropositivity/IMMUNOLOGY
       Immunoglobulins/BIOSYNTHESIS  Interferon-alpha/BIOSYNTHESIS/*BLOOD
       Interferon-beta/BIOSYNTHESIS/*BLOOD  Kenya  Placenta/IMMUNOLOGY  Random
       Allocation  Support, Non-U.S. Gov't  Trophoblast/*IMMUNOLOGY  JOURNAL
       ARTICLE

       SOURCE: National Library of Medicine.  NOTICE: This material may be
       protected by Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.Code).

