Comparative study on the antiviral activity of tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha, lymphotoxin/TNF-beta, and IL-1 in WISH cells.

We find that pretreatment of WISH cells with tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha, IL-1, and lymphotoxin/TNF-beta is capable of inducing an antiviral state in these cells, thereby protecting them from vesicular stomatitis virus cytopathic effect. Furthermore, we find that such a treatment causes a major inhibition of the synthesis of VSV proteins, as analyzed by SDS-PAGE. The 2-5A synthetase activity is also increased by treating the cells with doses of cytokines effective in antiviral protection. In this cell system, inclusion of polyclonal antibodies to IFN-beta during cytokine pretreatment abrogates the antiviral state elicited by the above cytokines, while antibodies to IFN-beta 2/IL-6 fail to abolish the cytokine-induced antiviral effects.