Abstract: Aim To study the effect of prothymosin α(Pro %) as a fusion protein on the secretion of IFN-γ, IFN-αand TNF-α in vitro. Methods The in vitro study was carried out on the cultured of splenocytes, splenic and peritonealmacrophages isolated from Balb/c mice. Splenocytes were incubated with various concentrations of Pro Tα(1×10^-7-1×l0^-10 mol·L^-1) with or without Con A(5 μg·mL^-1) for 72 h. Splenic and peritoneal macrophages were respectively treatedwith Pro Tα(1×10^-7-1×l0^-10 mol·L^-1) in the presence of LPS(10 μg·mL^-1) for 24 h. Then IFN-y's, IFN-α's andTNF-α's levels in the supematant were deteced by ELISA. Results Pro Tα (1×10^-7 mol·L^-1) was found to obviously increase IFN-γ level (P<0.05) in the supematant of splenocytes compared with the control group. Moreover, Pro Tα(1×10^-7 mol·L^-1) significantly induced the secretion of IFN-α (P<0.01)and TNF-α(P<0.01) in splenic and peritonealmacrophages. Conclusion In vitro, Pro Tα could increase the secretion of IFN-γ, IFN-α and TNF-α.

Key words: prothymosin α, prothymosin α, immunoregulate, immunoregulate, cytokine, cytokine