Highly purified natural human interferon-alpha (IFN-alpha) inhibited in a dose-dependent manner the proliferation of human peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL) stimulated with T-cell mitogen concanavalin A (Con A) or with interleukin-2 (IL-2). Contrary to this inhibitory effect, IFN-alpha at the same concentrations significantly increased proliferation of PBL stimulated with B-cell mitogen bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS) or with IL-3, and even spontaneous proliferation of PBL was enhanced by IFN-alpha. Proliferation of Con A-stimulated PBL depleted of CD8+ cells was sensitive to the inhibitory action of IFN-alpha, while proliferation of the Con A-stimulated CD4+ cell-depleted PBL was not affected by IFN-alpha. The inhibitory effect of IFN-alpha on PBL proliferation was due to neither inhibition of IL-2 receptor (IL-2R) expression, activation of suppressor cells, nor inhibition of lymphokine production. Rather, IFN-alpha augmented production of IL-1 and IL-2 by PBL. These results show that the suppressive effect of natural IFN-alpha on Con A-induced proliferation of PBL is due to a direct growth-inhibitory effect on CD4+ T cells, and that IFN-alpha simultaneously augments production of lymphokines. This could in turn lead to the increased proliferation of IFN-alpha-resistant cell populations.