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Thanks from me too for the well informed responses on this paper linked by xv and another.
Spinnaker
Thanks M
that paper was doing my head in.
Marik, they went for interferon alpha because that’s what Heberon is.
That’s what they’re using in Russia and have been throughout the pandemic.
Interferon alpha 2 beta. You can buy it in ampules from Russian pharmacy, they’ve had it there for the last 30 years. You open the amp, mix with water and use the drops to either spray intranasal or use as eye drops. It acts as an immune response preventing you from getting the virus.
Any paper coming out of Russia regarding interferon alpha is because they already use it in their hospitals and pharmacies.
Thanks Matterhorn , excellent post
Much of the confusion arose I think was related to the potential pathogenicity of omicron and it effect on the innate immunity . Firstly , the first paper they suggest omicron has reduced capability of antagonising the host cell interferon response.This fits in with the clinical picture ie generally resulting in mild disease compared with Delta
The second paper suggests and elevated capability of suppression of IFN induction would predict greater virulence of omicron resulting in severe disease like Delta and we know its not ?
I would caution against reading too much into this paper. The sensitivity of each variant against exogenous IFN treatment is different for each of the types of interferons, some more than others. It’s too simplistic to assume there’s not much difference when comparing the various types of interferons.
Based on a study done last year IFN beta and lamda were most effective against each of the variants with the delta variant being especially sensitive against IFN beta treatment. Refer to figure 2 of the below article – link provided.
It should be expected that omicron will behave differently to IFN beta treatment than other variants. It’s best not to speculate until we are presented with specific proof.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.11.16.468777v1.full
Here’s another paper comparing the variants types of interferons against each of the variants. Much more detailed study.
Quote: ‘Nebulized IFNß showed potential as a therapeutic against COVID-19, and our data confirm IFNß is highly potent against SARS-CoV-2. We previously reported that IFNß upregulated 2.4-fold more genes than individual IFNa subtypes, suggesting that IFNß may induce more pleiotropic effects. Among the IFNa subtypes, IFNa8 showed similar anti-SARS-CoV-2 potency as IFNß.’
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7986999/
That would explain why they went for IFN-alpha, it's because they assumed that it is similar to IFN-beta (what a mistake to make by Professor Weber).
When Professor Friedemann Weber says "IFN-beta is more powerful. But who knows!", there in lies the problem. Professor Sir Stephen Holgate considers IFN-beta to be more powerful than IFN-alpha. That's why IFN-beta therapy has been the focus of research for so long.
Marik, not Maria …. auto-correct!!
Maria, I wrote to the corresponding author on the paper, Professor Friedemann Weber, asking why they restricted the second part of the study to IFN alpha and whether they had considered looking at beta as well. Here is his reply:
“Thank you for your email. Good point. We currently use IFN alpha for our assays but have done exts with beta in the past (not with CoV). I dont expect much of a difference, and if any, that IFN-beta is more powerful. But who knows!”
I've noted quite a few comments on this paper [1] in reference to Synairgen. There are a few points that have been missed and the paper is positive for SNG001.
Here are the few key points to note.
1. first part of the study finds that Omicron had a low activation levels against IFN-beta (special emphasis by the authors).
2. they go on to present results of exogenous IFN-alpha (they presented IFN-alpha data but should have in theory gone straight for IFN-beta).
Another reason that the authors should have chosen IFN-beta for testing is because in vivo antibodies against interferon-alpha would neutralise its effect. But that isn't the case for IFN-beta.
In summary, only the first part of the paper is relevant for Synairgen i.e. Omicron induces low levels of IFN-beta. Which leads us to assume that higher levels of exogenous IFN-beta would have been beneficial.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.01.20.476754v1