Interleukin-6 in Cervical Cancer: The Relationship with Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor

Interleukin-6 promotes cervical tumor growth by VEGF-dependent angiogenesis via a STAT3 pathway

“…IL-6 specifically upregulates VEGF in C33A cells via a STAT3 pathway. Earlier studies have demonstrated consistently higher expression of IL-6 and VEGF in cervical cancer tissues (Wei et al, 2001a). Therefore, we believe strong evidence exists to support the hypothesis that IL-6 facilitates tumorigenesis of cervical cancer via VEGF-mediated angiogenesis.…”

“…Interestingly, hypoxic stress, a common environmental feature of solid tumors, has been demonstrated to induce IL-6 expression in vascular cells and cardiomyocytes (YamauchiTakihara et al, 1995;Yan et al, 1995), implying that IL-6 may be an important mediator in hypoxia-induced angiogenesis during rapid tumor growth. IL-6 is a key microenvironmental influence in cervical cancer, and is produced in different types of cells in cervical cancer, including tumor cells, fibroblasts, macrophages, and monocytes (Belec et al, 1995;Iglesias et al, 1995;Tartour et al, 1994;Wei et al, 2001a). Accordingly, the data herein indicated that IL-6 may transcriptionally upregulate VEGF expression in cervical cancer cells via an autocrine and/or paracrine mechanism.…”

“…Viral infection and exposure to proinflammatory cytokines such as IL-1a and tumor necrosis factor a can stimulate IL-6 gene expression by the keratinocytes (Iglesias et al, 1995). IL-6 expression in tumor tissues is high and correlates with the severity of cervical cancer (Tartour et al, 1994;Tjiong et al, 1999;Wei et al, 2001a). Also, IL-6 may contribute to a local immunosuppressive effect that protects the tumor cells from the host immune system (Tilg et al, 1997).…”

Stratification Analysis and Case-control Study of Relationships between Interleukin-6 Gene Polymorphisms and Cervical Cancer Risk in a Chinese Population

“…And the production of IL-6 was believed to be related to the severity of cervical neoplasia (Tjiong et al, 1999). Substantially high microenvironmental IL-6 levels promoted tumor angiogenesis and the development of cervical cancer (Wei et al, 2001a). IL-6 regulated the mcl-1 expression via a PI 3-K/Akt-dependent pathway that might facilitate the oncogenesis of human cervical cancer by modulating the apoptosis threshold (Wei et al, 2001b).…”

Correlation of VEGF production with IL1α and IL6 secretion by human pituitary adenoma cells

“…In rat skeletal muscle myoblasts and glioma cells, Cohen et al found that IL6 increases VEGF mRNA expression by levels comparable to those seen with hypoxia (28). Addition of exogenous IL6 to a cervical cancer cell line in vitro has also been found to show a time-and dose-dependent increase of VEGF expression (29). While Salgado et al found that exogenous IL6 showed no effect on VEGF levels, removing basally secreted IL6 by a neutralising antibody significantly lowered the VEGF secretion by a human megakaryoblastic cell line (30).…”