In vitro activity of alpha, beta, gamma human interferons and Aspergillus terreus mycotoxins on cell proliferation.

The in vitro effect of different doses of alpha, beta and gamma human interferons and their interaction on the proliferation rate of human erythroleukemic cell line (K-562) and other cell lines has been evaluated. The results show that the stronger activity is exerted by beta HIF in comparison with alpha HIF. The action is selective and species-specific. beta HIF never elicited an "enhancing" effect on cell proliferation; on the contrary this phenomenon has been observed to occur with alpha and gamma HIF. In our cell system, the interaction between beta and gamma HIF gave a synergistic effect; on the contrary, no interaction has been observed to take place when beta HIF and directly cytotoxic mycotoxins extracted from A. terreus are associated.