In the article below:
Role of Natural Killer Cells in Innate Protection against Lethal Ebola Virus Infection
Kelly L. Warfield,1J eremy G. Perkins,4 Dana L. Swenson,1 Emily M.Deal,1 Catharine M. Bosio,2 M. Javad Aman,2Wayne M. Yokoyama,5Howard A. Young,3 and Sina Bavari1
1United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases,
2Clinical Research Management,and3 Laboratory of Experimental Immunology, National Cancer Institute, Frederick, Maryland 21702 4Department of Hematology and Oncology, Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington DC 20307
5 Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Rhuematology Division, Washington University School of Medicine,St. Louis, MO 63110
It was concluded that:
The innate immune system provides early surveillance
and control of viral infections. In this paper, we show that
the innate immune response, specifically NK cells, can mediate
rapid and complete protection against lethal Ebola virus
infection. These observations represent a key advance
in understanding the requirements for protective immunity
against Ebola virus infection. The identification of NK cells
as critical mediators of early protection against Ebola virus
infection are an important step forward in the identification
of prophylactic and therapeutic interventions against filovirus
and other incapacitating acute viral infections. Although
the exact application of these findings to therapeutics
in treating Ebola virus–infected primates and humans is
unclear at this time, therapeutic agents that bolster the innate
immune response, including activation of NK cells,
should be the target of future studies.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2845472/ - Trametes versicolor the Turkeytail mushroom, has a NK cell activation effect.The turkeytail polysaccharides activate TLR4 more strongly than lipo-polysaccharide (endotoxin). Lipo-polysaccharide is the broken cell walls of bacteria, and the cause of septic shock. In all the other animals, including chimpanzees, siglec-13 is active. Siglec-13 is the control system that stops TLR4 from over-activating the immune system and causing septic shock and death.
The human LD50 for endotoxin is below 5 micrograms per kilogram, three orders of magnitude lower than mice. We are 6000 times larger yet die at doses only double what kills a 25 gram mouse. So be very cautious about injection of such material. It will, however, activate NK cells if taken orally.
S.-C. Jeong, et al, "Macrophage-Stimulating Activity of Polysaccharides Extracted from Fruiting Bodies of Coriolus versicolor (Turkey Tail Mushroom)," Journal of Medicinal Food, vol. 9, pp. 175-181, 2006.
C. J. Torkelson, et al, "Phase 1 Clinical Trial of Trametes versicolor in Women with Breast Cancer," ISRN Oncology, vol. 2012, 2012.
That said, after reading that paper, I am not at all sure that just any NK activator would have the same result. One would expect that killed Ebola virus would have the same effect as their VLPs and this doesn't happen.
There are significant differences in immune function between human and mouse, and even between strains of mice used in laboratories. A mouse can survive immune system activation challenges that would kill a human 1000 times over. And there was an Ebola vaccine test in which only the C57BL6 strain required VP35 in the vaccine to survive Ebola challenge. But other mouse strains survived without VP35.
Also, injection of Ebola virus proteins 1-3 days prior to inoculation with live Ebola virus is the simplest kind of vaccination. What this would do is start priming the adaptive immune system to respond, and I note that they did not assay antibodies to the Ebola virus proteins. That would have been significant. It is possible that their preparation of virus like particles acted as a self-adjuvant tht was extremely effective. It is probable that contamination in their virus-like particle preparation with endotoxin acted as an extreme adjuvant for the virus-like particles. But it wouldn't be present in the killed Ebola virus preparation. The reason is that the most common way to create large amounts of expressed protein is by fermentation in an E. coli LacZ system.
So, they may have been dealing with activation of cellular immunity against Ebola, not just general activation of NK cells. I suspect they were.
However, I believe you are there in the midst of the epidemic. So go ahead and try it. Oral administration. The turkeytail mushroom is very common in North America. It's easy to get extracts.
Chitosan is another NK activator. http://jn.nutrition.org/content/134/4/945.short
http://web.usm.my/nsf/proceedings/pBIO22.pdf - an overview of chitosan extraction with references.
Sorry. I didn't click on your name prior to this. You are in the United States. I'd be quite cautious about presenting NK activation as the solution in humans. It should not do harm, but I doubt very much you will get the same results that the paper got with it's Ebola VLPs in mice using just any innate immune activator.
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