Toshio Toyosawa

Highly purified vitamin B2 presents a promising therapeutic strategy for sepsis and septic shock.

ABSTRACT Highly purified vitamin B2 (riboflavin 5′-sodium phosphate; purity > 97%) treatment by intravenous infusion at doses above those used clinically to treat vitamin B2 deficiency showed therapeutic effects in mice not only in cases of endotoxin- and exotoxin-induced shock but also in cases of gram-negative and gram-positive bacterial infection even after the toxemia had already begun.

Prophylactic activity of dihydro-heptaprenol, a synthetic polyprenol derivative, against Sendai virus infection in mice

Abstract The effect of a chemically synthesized polyprenol derivative, dihydroheptaprenol (DHP), on the non-specific resistance of mice to Sendai virus infection was investigated. The mice that received 200 μg of DHP intranasally twice, at 3 days and 1 day before the infection, showed a significant protection against Sendai virus infection. Treatment of mice twice even with as much as 2000 μg of DHP through the subcutaneous route, however, had no protective effect against infection. Excess interferon and tumour necrosis factor production in intranasally DHP-treated mice was seen 1 day after the infection when compared with Sendai virus alone controls or with DHP alone controls. Variance analysis of these findings indicates a prophylactic activity of DHP in pulmonary viral infections.