Zhang Zhiyu, Zhou Qi, Ouyang Jun, Pu Jinxian, Hou Jianquan, Zhang Jianglei
Department of Urology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, Suzhou, China.
Transl Androl Urol. 2020 Dec;9(6):2657-2664. doi: 10.21037/tau-20-761.
To measure expression levels of interleukin-9 (IL-9) in renal tumors and to determine the clinical significance of those levels.
Using TCGA database analysis, we found that the expression of IL-9 in renal clear cell carcinoma was significantly down-regulated, and was significantly related to survival. We then verified this using experiments. We enrolled 66 patients who underwent surgical resection of renal tumors between January and December 2018 at the First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University. Their tumor tissues were paired with adjacent normal tissues and IL-9 expression levels were measured using immunohistochemistry. We determined the correlation of IL-9 expression with clinicopathological features and progression-free survival (PFS).
Expression of IL-9 in renal tumors was significantly lower than in adjacent normal tissues (P<0.0001). There was a significant negative correlation between IL-9 expression levels and R.E.N.A.L. scores (P=0.0277) as well as with differentiation (P=0.0041). However, no significant correlation was found between IL-9 levels and clinicopathological features, including gender (P=0.0716), age (P=0.2566), body mass index (BMI) (P=0.7941), tumor size (P=0.4193) or TNM staging (P=0.5402). PFS time in renal tumor patients with positive IL-9 expression was similar to that of patients with negative IL-9 expression.
IL-9 expression was higher in adjacent normal tissues than in renal tumors. Low expression of IL-9 was detected when R.E.N.A.L. score was high or cell differentiation was poor, suggesting that IL-9 may may play a protective role in renal tumor microenvironments.
测量肾肿瘤中白细胞介素-9（IL-9）的表达水平，并确定这些水平的临床意义。
通过TCGA数据库分析，我们发现肾透明细胞癌中IL-9的表达显著下调，且与生存率显著相关。然后我们通过实验对此进行了验证。我们纳入了2018年1月至12月在苏州大学附属第一医院接受肾肿瘤手术切除的66例患者。将他们的肿瘤组织与相邻正常组织配对，并使用免疫组织化学法测量IL-9表达水平。我们确定了IL-9表达与临床病理特征及无进展生存期（PFS）的相关性。
肾肿瘤中IL-9的表达显著低于相邻正常组织（P<0.0001）。IL-9表达水平与R.E.N.A.L.评分（P=0.0277）以及分化程度（P=0.0041）之间存在显著负相关。然而，未发现IL-9水平与包括性别（P=0.0716）、年龄（P=0.2566）、体重指数（BMI）（P=0.7941）、肿瘤大小（P=0.4193）或TNM分期（P=0.5402）在内的临床病理特征之间存在显著相关性。IL-9表达阳性的肾肿瘤患者的PFS时间与IL-9表达阴性的患者相似。
相邻正常组织中IL-9的表达高于肾肿瘤。当R.E.N.A.L.评分高或细胞分化差时检测到IL-9低表达，提示IL-9可能在肾肿瘤微环境中发挥保护作用。
