Circulating interferon-like activity in inflammatory bowel disease

Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) has been characterized as having an autoimmune background. We studied the presence of immune interferon in the sera of a small number of patients with IBD. Antiviral activity was detectable in the sera of our patients with well-controlled IBD but it was mainly weak-positive (50% inhibition of virus CPE in a dilution of 1:10 per 0.2 ml of serum). The antiviral activity varied according to the sensitivity of the cell line used. The human amnion cells Wish (81%) and the human embryonic Intestine-407 (73%) were more sensitive.