Copyright © 2000 by Institute of Pharmacology
Polish Academy of Sciences 		Pol. J. Pharmacol., 2000, 52, 481-486
ISSN 1230-6002
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PRELIMINARY COMMUNICATION
 SUPPRESSIVE EFFECT OF TRH AND IMIPRAMINE ON HUMAN INTERFERON-gamma AND INTERLEUKIN-10 PRODUCTION IN VITRO
 Marta Kubera1#, Gunter Kenis2, Eugene Bosmans3, Lucylla Jaworska-Feil1, Władysław Lasoń1, Simone Scharpe4, Michael Maes2,5,6
 1 Department of Endocrinology, Institute of Pharmacology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Smętna 12, PL 31-343 Kraków, Poland;
2 Department of Psychiatry and Neuropsychology, University of Maastricht, The Netherlands;
3 Eurogenetics, Tessenderlo, Belgium;
4 Department of Medical Biochemistry, University of Antwerp, Edegem, Belgium,
5 Clinical Research Center for Mental Health, Antwerp, Belgium;
6 Department of Psychiatry, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, USA

Suppressive effect of TRH and imipramine on human interferon-gamma and interleukin-10 production in vitro. M. KUBERA, G. KENIS, E. BOSMANS, L. JAWORSKA-FEIL, W. LASOŃ, S. SCHARPE, M. MAES. Pol. J. Pharmacol., 2000, 52, 481-486.

It has been established that thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH) affects several aspects of immunoreactivity, e.g. production of pro-inflammatory cytokines, and enhances therapeutic efficiency of classic tricyclic antidepressants. On the other hand, it has been suggested that pro-inflammatory cytokines play a role in the etiology of depression, whereas the therapeutic efficacy of antidepressants is related to their negative immunoregulatory effect. In order to verify the hypothesis that the TRH-induced increase in the therapeutic efficiency of classic tricyclic antidepressants results from synergistic inhibitory effects of those two agents on the secretion of pro-inflammatory cytokines, we studied the effect of imipramine applied jointly with TRH on the production of IFN-gamma and IL-10 by human whole blood cells stimulated in vitro by mitogens. A significant decrease in the production of IFN-gamma and IL-10 cytokines, by 36% and 34%, respectively, was observed in cells stimulated with mitogens and co-incubated with imipramine and TRH (either given at a dose of 10 M). Under the same conditions, TRH alone did not change the production of those cytokines. Furthermore, imipramine alone decreased, not statistically significantly, though, the production of IFN-gamma. Hence our data only partly support the above-mentioned hypothesis, since TRH and imipramine applied jointly suppress the production of both the pro-inflammatory IFN-gamma and the anti-inflammatory IL-10 cytokines.

Key words: TRH, interferon-gamma, interleukin-10
  # correspondence
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