A New Way to Prime Immune Cells

A new compound derived from the cell walls of yeast can prime immune cells without causing harmful inflammation.

Many drugs designed to enhance the immune system also overstimulate it, triggering inflammation due to proteins known as cytokines. These produce fever, malaise, joint pains, and leaky capillaries. The new compound, Imprime PGG, can improve host defenses without eliciting pro-inflammatory cytokines. Imprime PGG, a soluble beta glucan, was developed by Biothera (Eagan, MN, USA).

In preclinical research, innate immune cells called macrophages that were pretreated with Imprime PGG repressed the level of inflammatory cytokines such as tumor necrosis factor (TNF-alpha) compared with those of untreated macrophages that were stimulated by bacterial endotoxin. This work showed that Imprime PGG may not only enhance the beneficial aspects of immune priming but may also limit the harmful effects of systemic inflammation. Researchers at Brown University (Providence, RI, USA) presented these results at the annual meeting of Experimental Biology in San Diego (CA, USA) in March 2005.

"One of the drawbacks with pharmaceutical compounds designed to stimulate the immune system has been the side-effects associated with the overexpression of certain cytokines that patients cannot tolerate,” noted Jonathan Reichner, Ph.D., associate professor in the department of surgery at Brown University Medical School. "Imprime PGG is unique in its ability to prime immune cells without eliciting cytokines.”






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