How does interferon work in viral diseases?
Interferon prevents cells from infection from many, but not all, viruses. If a cell is treated with interferon, interferon changes the properties of that cell and can prevent the virus from replicating in that cell and leading to the infection of surrounding cells. It does this by a wide variety of mechanisms that vary from virus to virus and from cell to cell. Remarkably, the mechanism also varies from species to species, such as mice and humans, which makes it hard to predict how it will work in humans based on animal studies. The interferon-alphas are used to treat viral diseases. They’re approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B and chronic hepatitis C. They have also been approved for the treatment of papilloma virus infections, which cause genital warts. So those are two of the major viruses that are treated therapeutically with interferon. Interferon protects cells against the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the virus which c
