Inflammatory Cytokine Modulation of Cancer Cell Proliferation

Bhuvanath, S.; Nilkaeo, A.

Inflammatory cytokines have a critical role in modulation of both innate and adaptive immunity in response to foreign antigen. They also play an important role in anticancer immunity. For example, they can promote cell‐mediated immunity against cancer cells. With their immunostimulatory effects, these cytokines are being tested for cancer treatment in the form of DNA vaccine or adjuvant or therapeutic cytokines. Direct effect of these cytokines on cancer cell, however, is still unclear. In this project, we investigated whether IL‐1( and IL‐18 can modulate cancer cell proliferation. We employed a simple nonradioactive proliferation (MTT) assay and detection of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) to test the effect of these recombinant human cytokines on various cancer cell lines, including breast cancer cell line (MCF‐7), oral carcinoma cell line (KB), colon cancer cell line (Caco‐2) and choriocarcinoma cell line (Jar). Cytokines used in this study had both inhibitory and stimulatory effect on cell proliferation. Findings in this project could provide an insight of cancer cell response to these cytokines and this could lead to a consideration on using cytokine as immunotherapy for cancer treatment.