title: Interleukin-23 and interleukin-27 exert quite different antitumor and vaccine effects on poorly immunogenic melanoma.
abstract: Recent studies revealed that two novel interleukin (IL)-12-related cytokines, IL-23 and IL-27, have potent antitumor activities. However, the antitumor effects were mainly evaluated in relatively highly immunogenic tumors and have not been fully evaluated against nonimmunogenic or poorly immunogenic tumors. In this study, we investigated the antitumor efficacies of IL-23 and IL-27 on poorly immunogenic B16F10 melanoma and found that the antitumor responses mediated by IL-23 and IL-27 were clearly different. In syngeneic mice, mouse single-chain (sc) IL-23-transfected B16F10 (B16/IL-23) tumors exhibited almost the same growth curve as B16F10 parental tumor about until day 20 after tumor injection and then showed growth inhibition or even regression. In contrast, scIL-27-transfected B16F10 (B16/IL-27) tumors exhibited significant retardation of tumor growth from the early stage. In vivo depletion assay revealed that the antitumor effect of B16/IL-23 was mainly mediated by CD8+ T cells and IFN-gamma whereas that of B16/IL-27 mainly involved natural killer cells and was independent of IFN-gamma. We also found that antitumor effects of B16/IL-23 and B16/IL-27 were synergistically enhanced by treatment with IL-18 and IL-12, respectively. Furthermore, B16/IL-23-vaccinated mice developed protective immunity against parental B16F10 tumors but B16/IL-27-vaccinated mice did not. When combined with prior in vivo depletion of CD25+ T cells, 80% of B16/IL-23-vaccinated mice completely rejected subsequent tumor challenge. Finally, we showed that the systemic administration of neither IL-23 nor IL-27 induced such intense toxicity as IL-12. Our data support that IL-23 and IL-27 might play a role in future cytokine-based immunotherapy against poorly immunogenic tumors.
authors.affiliation: Division of Dermatology, Department of Clinical Molecular Medicine, Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine, Kobe, Japan.
authors.forename: Shuntaro
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Oniki
authors.forename: Hiroshi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Nagai
authors.forename: Tatsuya
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Horikawa
authors.forename: Junya
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Furukawa
authors.forename: Maria Laura
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Belladonna
authors.forename: Takayuki
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Yoshimoto
authors.forename: Isao
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Hara
authors.forename: Chikako
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Nishigori
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D019496:Cancer Vaccines / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000276:immunology / Q000494:pharmacology*; D004357:Drug Synergism; D005260:Female; D018664:Interleukin-12 / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology / Q000494:pharmacology; D053759:Interleukin-23; D053760:Interleukin-23 Subunit p19; D007378:Interleukins / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology* / Q000494:pharmacology; D008546:Melanoma, Experimental / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology* / Q000628:therapy*; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D014162:Transfection
chemical_list: D019496:Cancer Vaccines; C508841:Il23a protein, mouse; C486767:Il27 protein, mouse; D053759:Interleukin-23; D053760:Interleukin-23 Subunit p19; D007378:Interleukins; D018664:Interleukin-12