Aspartate-assisted immune stimulation: its importance in antitumor and antiviral protection

Immune stimulators such as Corynebacterium parvum (CP) are useful for antitumoral and antiviral therapy. However, the immune trigger cannot be reactivated without adversely affecting the disease. We have tried to amplify the results yielded by a single injection of CP by using either interleukin-2 (IL2) or aspartate salts (ASP). In the present report, we show that IL2 has no detectable clinical effect. In contrast, the addition of an ASP salt increases the antiviral and antitumoral protection afforded by the CP-induced trigger. Moreover, treatment using only ASP slightly protects against tumor development and significantly increases antiviral resistance during experimental encephalomyocarditis (EMC) infection. This ASP-assisted CP immune stimulation improves antitumoral resistance even when ascitic tumors have already developed. In the latter case, tumor regression can even be detected. Since ASP increases T-cell cytotoxicity in vitro and aggravates spontaneous T-cell lymphomas in AKR mice, the involvement of T-cell-mediated immunity may explain antitumoral and antiviral effects. We propose the use of this therapeutic model for human cancer therapy, and possibly for treating AIDS.