title: Elevated systemic interleukin-7 in patients with colorectal cancer and individuals at high risk of cancer: association with lymph node involvement and tumor location in the right colon.
abstract: Interleukin (IL)-7 is a cytokine essential for protective immunity, and it is considered as a promising agent for cancer immunotherapy. Recent studies, however, appear to associate IL-7 with aggressiveness of solid tumors. The IL-7 has been less studied in colorectal cancer (CRC) and conditions associated with increased risk of CRC development. To explore IL-7 status in bowel diseases, it was measured immunofluorometrically in 431 individuals (110 with CRC) by using Luminex platform. A level of IL-7 in CRC patients was significantly higher than in controls, did not differ from those with adenomas, but was lower than in both active and inactive inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) cases. In CRC, IL-7 was higher in patients with lymph node and distant metastases and with tumors located in right colon. In adenomas, IL-7 elevation was associated exclusively with villous growth pattern, while in IBD, circulating IL-7 reflected clinical activity of Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. Systemic TNFα, IL-10, and PDGF-BB were independent predictors of circulating IL-7. In summary, our study is the first to demonstrate IL-7 elevation in CRC in association with metastatic disease and tumor location. Both associations should be considered when designing IL-7-based immunotherapies for CRC. Further studies on IL-7 functionality in CRC are necessary.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Biochemistry, Wroclaw Medical University, ul. Chalubinskiego 10, 50-368, Wroclaw, Poland. gosia.krzystek@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Malgorzata
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2753-8092
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Krzystek-Korpacka
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgical Oncology, Regional Specialist Hospital, Wroclaw, Poland.
authors.forename: Marek
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zawadzki
authors.affiliation: Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Wroclaw Medical University, Wroclaw, Poland.
authors.forename: Katarzyna
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Neubauer
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Biochemistry, Wroclaw Medical University, ul. Chalubinskiego 10, 50-368, Wroclaw, Poland.
authors.forename: Iwona
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Bednarz-Misa
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Medical Microbiology, Ludwik Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy, Polish Academy of Sciences, Wroclaw, Poland.
authors.forename: Sabina
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Górska
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Biochemistry, Wroclaw Medical University, ul. Chalubinskiego 10, 50-368, Wroclaw, Poland.
authors.forename: Jerzy
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wiśniewski
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgical Oncology, Regional Specialist Hospital, Wroclaw, Poland.|Research and Development Centre at Regional Specialist Hospital, Wroclaw, Poland.
authors.forename: Wojciech
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Witkiewicz
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Biochemistry, Wroclaw Medical University, ul. Chalubinskiego 10, 50-368, Wroclaw, Poland.|Laboratory of Medical Microbiology, Ludwik Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy, Polish Academy of Sciences, Wroclaw, Poland.
authors.forename: Andrzej
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gamian
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D015179:Colorectal Neoplasms / Q000097:blood* / Q000473:pathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D015851:Interleukin-7 / Q000097:blood*; D008198:Lymph Nodes / Q000473:pathology*; D008207:Lymphatic Metastasis; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012307:Risk Factors
chemical_list: D015851:Interleukin-7
keywords: Adenomas; Colorectal cancer; Immunity; Inflammatory bowel disease; Interleukin-7; Lymph node metastasis