Suppression of extablished Friend virus leukemia by statolon: potentiation of statolon's leukemosuppressive activity by chlorite-oxidized oxyamylose

Treatment of Friend virus (FV)-infected mice, 3 days after FV inoculation, with statolon, an extract of the mold Penicillium stoloniferum, induces interferon and restores immunocompetence to viral and nonviral antigens such as sheep erythrocytes. Clinical remissions are established in 20 to 70% of the infected mice. Cholorite-oxidized oxyamylose administered intraperitoneally 24 h before, 3 h before, or 3 h after statolon enhanced interferon production, but the increased number of mice protected against FV disease was more closely related to the associated enhanced synthesis of FV cytotoxic antibody. The prolonged selective immunodepression to intraperitoneal sheep erythrocytes after intraperitoneal administration of chlorite-oxidized oxyamylose-statolon appeared to be related to a stimulation in number and erythrocyte-phagocytic capacity of peritoneal macrophages. The marked activation of macrophages in FV leukemic mice after such treatment may also have contributed to the enhanced FV leukemosuppressive effects of chlorite-oxidized oxyamylose-statolon.