Laboratory of Cancer Biology & Genetics, Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute (NCI), NIH, Bethesda, Maryland 20892, USA.
Clin Cancer Res. 2011 Oct 1;17(19):6118-24. doi: 10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-11-0482. Epub 2011 Jun 24.
Interferon-γ is a cytokine whose biological activity is conventionally associated with cytostatic/cytotoxic and antitumor mechanisms during cell-mediated adaptive immune response. It has been used clinically to treat a variety of malignancies, albeit with mixed results and side effects that can be severe. Despite ample evidence implicating a role for IFN-γ in tumor immune surveillance, a steady flow of reports has suggested that it may also have protumorigenic effects under certain circumstances. We propose that, in fact, IFN-γ treatment is a double-edged sword whose anti- and protumorigenic activities are dependent on the cellular, microenvironmental, and/or molecular context. As such, inhibition of the IFN-γ/IFN-γ receptor pathway may prove to be a viable new therapeutic target for a subset of malignancies.
干扰素-γ 是一种细胞因子，其生物活性通常与细胞介导的适应性免疫反应中的细胞抑制/细胞毒性和抗肿瘤机制有关。它已在临床上用于治疗多种恶性肿瘤，但结果和副作用不一，有些副作用可能很严重。尽管有大量证据表明 IFN-γ 在肿瘤免疫监视中起作用，但不断有报道表明，在某些情况下，它也可能具有促肿瘤作用。我们提出，事实上，IFN-γ 治疗是一把双刃剑，其抗肿瘤和促肿瘤作用取决于细胞、微环境和/或分子背景。因此，抑制 IFN-γ/IFN-γ 受体途径可能被证明是某些恶性肿瘤的一种可行的新治疗靶点。
