Expression of interleukin-11 and interleukin-11 receptor alpha in human colorectal adenocarcinoma; immunohistochemical analyses and correlation with clinicopathological factors.
OBJECTIVE
There is strong evidence that interleukin-11 (IL-11) is involved in the regulation of tumor progression, cellular growth and differentiation. Recently, interleukin-11 receptor (IL-11R) has been detected on some cancer cells. In this study, we investigated the expression of IL-11 and IL-11R in colorectal adenocarcinoma.


METHODS
To elucidate the involvement of IL-11 and IL-11Ra in human intestinal adenocarcinomas, we examined 115 cases of surgically resected human colonic adenocarcinoma and 11 cases of adenoma by immunohistochemistry and Western blotting.


RESULTS
Among 115 cases of adenocarcinoma, 100 cases (87.0%) showed positive staining in the cytoplasm of carcinoma cells for the IL-11, and 87 cases (75.6%) were positive for the IL-11Ra. Six cases (54.5%) and four cases (36.4%) of 11 adenomas were positive for IL-11 and IL-11Ra, respectively. The expression of IL-11Ra correlated with the histological differentiation (P = 0.033503), the depth of tumor invasion (P = 0.006395), Dukes'classification (P = 0.015648) and lymphatic invasion (P = 0.003865). However, the expression of IL-11Ra was not correlated with the venous invasion and the presence of lymph node metastasis. The expression of IL-11 was not correlated with any clinicopathological factors. In Western blot analysis, two human colorectal carcinoma cell lines and four tissues of surgically resected human carcinoma expressed both IL-11 and IL-11Ra proteins.


CONCLUSIONS
IL-11 and IL-11Ra are highly expressed in human colorectal adenocarcinoma and the IL-11Ra expression is correlated with clinicopathological factors. These findings suggest that the expression of IL-11Ra is an important factor for the invasion of human colorectal adenocarcinoma.
Department of Molecular Pathology, Nagasaki University Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, 1-12-4 Sakamoto, Nagasaki 852-8523, Japan.
Kazuyuki
K
Yamazumi
Toshiyuki
T
Nakayama
Takafumi
T
Kusaba
Chun Yang
CY
Wen
Ayumi
A
Yoshizaki
Yuichi
Y
Yakata
Takeshi
T
Nagayasu
Ichiro
I
Sekine
D000230:Adenocarcinoma / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000473:pathology; D045744:Cell Line, Tumor; D015179:Colorectal Neoplasms / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000473:pathology; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D017370:Interleukin-11 / Q000032:analysis*; D053703:Interleukin-11 Receptor alpha Subunit; D018123:Receptors, Interleukin / Q000032:analysis* / Q000627:therapeutic use; D053702:Receptors, Interleukin-11
C508428:IL11RA protein, human; D017370:Interleukin-11; D053703:Interleukin-11 Receptor alpha Subunit; D018123:Receptors, Interleukin; D053702:Receptors, Interleukin-11