TNF-α-induced IL-32 expression in esophageal cancer: cross talk JNK/Akt signaling pathways

Abstract

Esophageal cancer is the seventh leading cause of cancer death in males in USA, Interleukin (IL)-32 is a recently identified proinflammatory cytokine that is one of the IL-18 inducible genes, and plays an important role in autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. IL-32 is recently described in esophageal cancer pathway via induction of nuclear factor NF-κB activation. We investigated the expression of IL-32 by TNF-α in esophageal cancer. Human esophageal cancer cells were cultured in the presence or absence of TNF-α to analyze the expression of IL-32 by quantitative RT-PCR and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Further, activation of Akt and JNK signaling pathways were investigated by Western blot. TNF-α induced enhanced IL-32 release in human esophageal cancer cells. These data suggest that activation of Akt and JNK pathways regulated TNF-α-induced IL-32 expression in human esophageal cancer. We concluded that TNF-α/IL-32 pathway may be a potential marker and may be therapeutic target for esophageal cancer.