• J. Cereb. Blood Flow Metab. · Sep 2003

    Interferon-beta blocks infiltration of inflammatory cells and reduces infarct volume after ischemic stroke in the rat.

    • Wouter B Veldhuis, Joris W Derksen, Sarah Floris, Peter H Van Der Meide, Helga E De Vries, Janneke Schepers, Ine M P Vos, Christien D Dijkstra, L Jaap Kappelle, Klaas Nicolay, and Peter R Bär.
    • Image Sciences Institute, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands. veldhuis@invivonmr.uu.nl
    • J. Cereb. Blood Flow Metab. 2003 Sep 1; 23 (9): 1029-39.

    AbstractThe inflammatory response that exacerbates cerebral injury after ischemia is an attractive therapeutic target: it progresses over days and strongly contributes to worsening of the neurologic outcome. The authors show that, after transient ischemic injury to the rat brain, systemic application of interferon-beta (IFN-beta), a cytokine with antiinflammatory properties, attenuated the development of brain infarction. Serial magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed that IFN-beta treatment reduced lesion volume on diffusion-weighted MRI by 70% (P < 0.01) at 1 day after stroke. IFN-beta attenuated the leakage of contrast agent through the blood-brain barrier (P < 0.005), indicating a better-preserved blood-brain barrier integrity. Both control and IFN-beta-treated animals showed a similar degree of relative hyperperfusion of the lesioned hemisphere, indicating that neuroprotection by IFN-beta was not mediated by improved cerebral perfusion as assessed 24 hours after stroke onset. IFN-beta treatment resulted in an 85% reduction (P < 0.0001) in infarct volume 3 weeks later, as determined from T2-weighted MRI and confirmed by histology. This effect was achieved even when treatment was started 6 hours after stroke onset. Quantitative immunohistochemistry at 24 hours after stroke onset showed that IFN-beta almost completely prevented the infiltration of neutrophils and monocytes into the brain. Gelatinase zymography showed that this effect was associated with a decrease in matrix metalloproteinase-9 expression. In conclusion, treatment with the antiinflammatory cytokine IFN-beta affords significant neuroprotection against ischemia/reperfusion injury, and within a relatively long treatment window. Because IFN-beta has been approved for clinical use, it may be rapidly tested in a clinical trial for its efficacy against human stroke.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…