Lymphotoxin, NF-κB, and Cancer: The Dark Side of Cytokines
Lymphotoxin, NF-κB, and Cancer: The Dark Side of Cytokines
复制标题
DOI：
10.1159/000341690
复制
发表时间：
2012-01-01
影响因子：
2.3
通讯作者：
Heikenwaelder，Mathias
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Bauer，Judith;Namineni，Sukumar;Heikenwaelder，Mathias
细胞因子参与了多种生理过程，包括淋巴组织的发育、淋巴细胞的激活以及伤口愈合等再生过程的控制。对一种与废除或杀死肿瘤细胞有关的细胞因子--肿瘤坏死因子(TNF)--的首次表征，培育和促进了一个全新的研究领域，除了癌症研究外，该领域的研究开始产生大量的免疫学、各种病理过程和其他研究领域的知识。由于细胞因子复杂的网络和多样的功能，人们很快就清楚了细胞因子在各种生物过程中具有不同的功能。至于对肿瘤的研究，研究表明，某些细胞因子--取决于器官的类型、作用时间、性别和细胞环境--可以具有促癌或抗癌作用。对于那些被报道为致癌的细胞因子，这可以通过直接作为致癌基因或产生致癌的炎症环境来实现。在这里，我们回顾了肿瘤坏死因子家族成员--特别是淋巴毒素(LT)α和β--在生理学和推动肿瘤发生中的新角色，尤其是肝脏。我们认为，最近关于这种特殊细胞因子的发现可能对肝癌或其他炎症诱导的癌症类型的治疗具有重要意义。
Cytokines have been implicated in a variety of physiological processes involving lymphoid tissue development, lymphocyte activation, and control of regenerative processes such as wound healing. The first characterization of a cytokine implicated in abolishing or killing tumor cells – the tumor necrosis factor (TNF) – fostered and boosted a completely new field of research that in addition to cancer research started to generate an overwhelming amount of knowledge in immunology, various pathological processes, and other fields of research. Due to the complex networks and versatile functions of cytokines, it soon became clear that cytokines can possess diametric functions in various biological processes. As for tumor research it was shown that some cytokines – depending on the type of organ, the time of action, gender, and the cellular environment – can have either pro- or anticarcinogenic action. For those cytokines reported to be procarcinogenic, this could be accomplished by directly acting as oncogenes or generating an inflammatory environment that is procarcinogenic. Here we review a novel role for TNF family members – in particular lymphotoxin (LT) α and β – in physiology and in driving tumorigenesis, with special focus on the liver. We believe that recent findings on this particular cytokine might have strong implications for the therapy of liver cancer or other inflammation-induced cancer types.