Synthetic Oligonucleotides with Certain Palindromes Stimulate Interferon Production of Human Peripheral Blood Lymphocytes in vitro

We studied the ability of synthetic single‐stranded 30‐mer oligodeoxyribonucleotides oligoDNAs) with three different kinds of hexamer palindromic sequence to induce interferon (IFN) production of human peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL). When PBL was cultured with oligoDNA having a palindrome of AACGTT or GACGTC, IFN activity was detected by bioassay in the culture fluid after 8 h, and the amount of IFN reached the maximum after 18 h. IFN‐α was predominantly produced, and small amounts of IFN‐β and IFN‐γ were also found. OligoDNA with the palindrome ACCGGT had no effect.