Influence of selected antibiotics on interferon synthesis

This paper discusses the influence of antibiotics - penicillin, streptomycin and mitomycin C - on interferon synthesis in vivo and in vitro. None of the antibiotics investigated was interferon inducer either in the suspension of human leukocytes or in the culture of cutaneo-muscular tissue from human embryo (HAT), or in mouse organism. However, the in vitro experiments revealed inhibitory effect of streptomycin and mitomycin C on the production of Newcastle disease virus (NDV) - stimulated interferon. Noteworthy is that the inhibition was most pronounced when the drug was administered simultaneously with the virus in the case of streptomycin or 24 h before the inducer in the case of mitomycin C. On the other hand, penicillin when introduced to the culture, exerted negligible modulatory effect on NDV-stimulated IFN.