Research Paper Volume 14, Issue 15 pp 6149—6168
Interleukin-17D promotes lung cancer progression by inducing tumor-associated macrophage infiltration via the p38 MAPK signaling pathway
- 1 Department of Immunology, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 2011 Collaborative Innovation Center of Tianjin for Medical Epigenetics, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Medical Epigenetics, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin 300070, China
- 2 Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Phylogenomics and Comparative Genomics, School of Life Sciences, Jiangsu Normal University, Xuzhou, Jiangsu 221116, China
- 3 Key Laboratory of Immune Microenvironment and Disease of the Ministry of Education, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin 300070, China
- 4 Tianjin Key Laboratory of Radiation Medicine and Molecular Nuclear Medicine, Institute of Radiation Medicine, Tianjin 300192, China
Received: March 10, 2022 Accepted: July 27, 2022 Published: August 5, 2022
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.204208How to Cite
Copyright: © 2022 Lin et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Cancer immunoediting is defined as the integration of the immune system’s dual host-protective and tumor-promoting roles, including three phases: elimination, equilibrium, and escape. Immune selective pressure causes tumor cells to lose major histocompatibility complex expression or acquire immunosuppressive gene expression, which promotes tumor immune evasion and tumor progression. Interleukin-17D (IL-17D), a member of the IL-17 family of cytokines, plays an important role in the host defense against infection and inflammation. However, the role of IL-17D in the progression of lung cancer remains unclear. In this study, we found that IL-17D was highly expressed in human lung cancer, and increased IL-17D expression was associated with tumor stage and short overall survival. IL-17D overexpression significantly promoted tumor growth in subcutaneous xenograft mouse models but only slightly affected cell proliferation in vitro. Using flow cytometry, we found that IL-17D overexpression enhances the recruitment of tumor-associated macrophages to the tumor microenvironment. Based on the expression profile of IL17D–overexpressing A549 cells, we found that IL-17D increased the expression levels of macrophage polarization– and recruitment–related genes through the MAPK signaling pathway. Moreover, inhibition of the p38 pathway blocked macrophage infiltration induced by IL-17D. These results suggest that IL-17D regulates the tumor immune microenvironment via the p38 MAPK signaling pathway, highlighting IL-17D as a potential therapeutic target for lung cancer.