Ribavarin - antiviral that also amerliorates autoimmune CNS disease?!

[Guest guest]

just came across this, wondering if it has been used on protocol

and what results?

Int Immunopharmacol. 2008 Sep;8(9):1282-90. Epub 2008 Jun 5.

Ribavirin ameliorates experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis in rats

and modulates cytokine production. Lavrnja I

<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed & Cmd=Search & Term=%22L\

avrnja%20I%22%5BAuthor%5D & itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_Resu\

ltsPanel.Pubmed_DiscoveryPanel.Pubmed_RVAbstractPlus> ,....Department of

Neurobiology, Institute for Biological Research Sinisa Stankovic,

University of Belgrade, Serbia. irenam@...

To determine the mechanism underlying ribavirin induced amelioration of

experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), cytokine profiles were

evaluated in draining lymph node (DLN) cell culture supernatants and

spinal cord obtained from EAE and/or ribavirin-treated EAE Dark Agouti

rats. Administration of ribavirin to EAE rats markedly affected the

production of pro-inflammatory cytokines IFN-gamma, IL-1beta and

TNF-alpha in DLN and spinal cord, thus shifting the balance towards the

anti-inflammatory cytokines IL-10 and TGF-beta. These findings suggest

that ribavirin attenuates EAE by limiting cytokine-mediated

immunoinflammatory events leading to CNS destruction. The conducted

experiments provide rationale for ribavirin to be considered as a

candidate drug in the development of new therapeutic strategies for the

treatment of autoimmune diseases in humans, such as multiple sclerosis.

PMID: 18602075