Functional evaluation of tumor-infiltrating mononuclear cells. Detection of endogenous interferon-gamma and tumor necrosis factor-alpha in human colorectal adenocarcinomas.
Quantitative evaluation of the levels of interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma) and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) in the extracts of tumors and their corresponding normal tissues resected from 43 patients with colorectal adenocarcinoma was done using solid-phase, sandwich radioimmunoassay. The levels of both IFN-gamma and TNF-alpha detected in the tumor tissues were higher than those in the corresponding normal colorectal tissues obtained from each patient. A significant negative correlation was observed between the level of IFN-gamma and TNF-alpha in each tumor extract. The decrease of the level of IFN-gamma in the tumor correlated with the advance of clinical stage, and the levels of IFN-gamma of the patients with distant metastases were significantly lower than those of the patients without distant metastases. However, an increase in the level of TNF-alpha correlated not only with an enlarged diameter but also with the extent of the primary tumor. Immunohistochemical staining of IFN-gamma and TNF-alpha producing cells in tumor tissues showed that IFN-gamma was mainly produced by CD4+ CD8- T-lymphocytes and TNF-alpha was mainly produced by CD11c+ cells with macrophage-like morphology. These results suggest that CD4+ T-lymphocytes that produce IFN-gamma might play an important role in the antitumor response against cancer progression in human colorectal adenocarcinomas.
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Department of Microbiology, Hokkaido University School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan.
Minagawa
T
T
Asano
M
M
Nakane
A
A
Katoh
H
H
Tanabe
T
T
D000230:Adenocarcinoma / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000473:pathology; D016516:CD4-CD8 Ratio; D003106:Colon / Q000737:chemistry; D003110:Colonic Neoplasms / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000473:pathology; D006801:Humans; D007124:Immunoenzyme Techniques; D007371:Interferon-gamma / Q000032:analysis*; D008264:Macrophages / Q000378:metabolism*; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D011863:Radioimmunoassay; D012004:Rectal Neoplasms / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000473:pathology; D012007:Rectum / Q000737:chemistry; D013194:Staining and Labeling; D013601:T-Lymphocytes / Q000378:metabolism*; D014409:Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha / Q000032:analysis*
D014409:Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha; D007371:Interferon-gamma