Preparation and determination of immunological activities of anti-HBV egg yolk extraction.

To prepare an effective immune preparation to treat hepatitis B, hens were immunized with hepatitis B vaccines, and then anti-HBV egg yolk extraction (anti-HBV EYE) was refined from egg yolk by a dialyzable method. Its chemical characteristics were identified by ultraviolet spectrum, HPLC, Lowry analysis and pharmacopocia-raleted methods. The specific immunological activity was examined by leukocyte adherence inhibition (LAI) in vitro and delayed type hypersensitivity (DTH) in vivo. Anti-HBV EYE was a small dialyzable substance with molecular weight less than 12 kD containing 18 kinds of amino acids. The preparation could obviously inhibit LAI and DTH which was similar to hepatitis B virus-specific transfer factor of pig spleen. However, there were no similar effects observed in the nonspecific transfer factor (NTF) group, control egg yolk extraction (CEYE) group and hepatitis A virus (HAV) group. The results suggested that anti-HBV EYE contained hepatitis B virus-specific transfer factor (STF) and had the antigen-specific cell immune activity similar to PSHBV-TF. The STF obtained from egg yolk of the hens immunized with specific antigen, might be a potential candidate for immunoregulation in hepatitis B prevention and treatment.