Abstract
The pleiotropic cytokine interleukin-6 (IL-6) contributes to malignant progression and apoptosis resistance of various cancer types. Although IL-6 is elevated in malignant gliomas, and glioma cells respond to IL-6, its functional role in gliomagenesis is unclear. We have investigated this role of IL-6 in a mouse model of spontaneous astrocytoma by crossbreeding glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP)-viral src oncogene transgenic mice with IL-6-deficient mice. We show here that ablation of IL-6 prevents tumour formation in these predisposed animals, but did not affect preneoplastic astrogliosis. Moreover, we demonstrate phosphorylation and nuclear translocation of the transcription factor signal transducer and activator of transcription (STAT)3, a prerequisite for IL-6 signalling, in 51 human gliomas WHO grade II–IV and all experimental mouse tumours investigated. Together with the observation that STAT3 activation increases with malignancy, these findings indicate an important role for IL-6 in the development and malignant progression of astrocytomas.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 50 print issues and online access
£169.00 per year
only £3.38 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on SpringerLink
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bromberg JF, Wrzeszczynska MH, Devgan G, Zhao Y, Pestell RG, Albanese C and Darnell Jr JE . (1999). Cell, 98, 295–303.
Brunello AG, Weissenberger J, Kappeler A, Vallan C, Peters M, Rose-John S and Weis J . (2000). Am. J. Pathol., 157, 1485–1493.
Buettner R, Mora LB and Jove R . (2002). Clin. Cancer Res., 8, 945–954.
Campbell IL, Abraham CR, Masliah E, Kemper P, Inglis JD, Oldstone MB and Mucke L . (1993). Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 90, 10061–10065.
Candi E, Knight RA, Spinedi A, Guerrieri P and Melino G . (1997). J. Neurooncol., 31, 115–122.
Cardenas H and Bolin LM . (2003). Brain Res., 985, 89–97.
Faruqi TR, Gomez D, Bustelo XR, Bar-Sagi D and Reich NC . (2001). Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 98, 9014–9019.
Fischer P, Lehmann U, Sobota RM, Schmitz J, Niemand C, Linnemann S, Haan S, Behrmann I, Yoshimura A, Johnston JA, Muller-Newen G, Heinrich PC and Schaper F . (2003). Biochem. J., 378, 449–460.
Goswami S, Gupta A and Sharma SK . (1998). J. Neurochem., 71, 1837–1845.
He B, You L, Uematsu K, Zang K, Xu Z, Lee AY, Costello JF, McCormick F and Jablons DM . (2003). Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 100, 14133–14138.
Heinrich PC, Behrmann I, Muller-Newen G, Schaper F and Graeve L . (1998). Biochem. J., 334 (Part 2), 297–314.
Hirano T, Ishihara K and Hibi M . (2000). Oncogene, 19, 2548–2556.
Hirota K and Semenza GL . (2001). J. Biol. Chem., 276, 21166–21172.
Holland EC . (2001). Nat. Rev. Genet., 2, 120–129.
Justicia C, Gabriel C and Planas AM. . (2000). Glia, 30, 253–270.
Kaptein A, Paillard V and Saunders M . (1996). J. Biol. Chem., 271, 5961–5964.
Kleihues P and Cavenee WK . (2000). World Health Organization Classification of Tumours: Pathology and Genetics of Tumours of the Nervous System. IARC Press: Lyon.
Klein MA, Moller JC, Jones LL, Bluethmann H, Kreutzberg GW and Raivich G . (1997). Glia, 19, 227–233.
Konnikova L, Kotecki M, Kruger MM and Cochran BH . (2003). BMC Cancer, 3, 23.
Kopf M, Baumann H, Freer G, Freudenberg M, Lamers M, Kishimoto T, Zinkernagel R, Bluethmann H and Kohler G . (1994). Nature, 368, 339–342.
Kossakowska AE, Edwards DR, Prusinkiewicz C, Zhang MC, Guo D, Urbanski SJ, Grogan T, Marquez LA and Janowska-Wieczorek A . (1999). Blood, 94, 2080–2089.
Kretzschmar AK, Dinger MC, Henze C, Brocke-Heidrich K and Horn F . (2003). Biochem. J., 377, 289–297.
Kreutzberg GW . (1996). Trends Neurosci., 19, 312–318.
Leu CM, Wong FH, Chang C, Huang SF and Hu CP . (2003). Oncogene, 22, 7809–7818.
Maher EA, Furnari FB, Bachoo RM, Rowitch DH, Louis DN, Cavenee WK and DePinho RA . (2001). Genes Dev., 15, 1311–1333.
Nagai S, Washiyama K, Kurimoto M, Takaku A, Endo S and Kumanishi T . (2002). J. Neurosurg., 96, 909–917.
Nagashima G, Suzuki R, Asai J and Fujimoto T . (2002). Clin. Neurol. Neurosurg., 104, 125–131.
Niu G, Wright KL, Huang M, Song L, Haura E, Turkson J, Zhang S, Wang T, Sinibaldi D, Coppola D, Heller R, Ellis LM, Karras J, Bromberg J, Pardoll D, Jove R and Yu H . (2002). Oncogene, 21, 2000–2008.
Rahaman SO, Harbor PC, Chernova O, Barnett GH, Vogelbaum MA and Haque SJ . (2002). Oncogene, 21, 8404–8413.
Rolhion C, Penault-Llorca F, Kemeny JL, Lemaire JJ, Jullien C, Labit-Bouvier C, Finat-Duclos F and Verrelle P . (2001). J. Neurosurg., 94, 97–101.
Schaefer LK, Ren Z, Fuller GN and Schaefer TS . (2002). Oncogene, 21, 2058–2065.
Sehgal PB, Guo GG, Shah M, Kumar V and Patel K . (2002). J. Biol. Chem., 28, 28.
Selmaj KW, Farooq M, Norton WT, Raine CS and Brosnan CF . (1990). J. Immunol., 144, 129–135.
Senger DL, Tudan C, Guiot MC, Mazzoni IE, Molenkamp G, LeBlanc R, Antel J, Olivier A, Snipes GJ and Kaplan DR . (2002). Cancer Res., 62, 2131–2140.
Shirogane T, Fukada T, Muller JM, Shima DT, Hibi M and Hirano T . (1999). Immunity, 11, 709–719.
Takizawa T, Yanagisawa M, Ochiai W, Yasukawa K, Ishiguro T, Nakashima K and Taga T . (2001). Cytokine, 13, 272–279.
Tchirkov A, Rolhion C, Bertrand S, Dore JF, Dubost JJ and Verrelle P . (2001). Br. J. Cancer, 85, 518–522.
Theurillat JP, Hainfellner J, Maddalena A, Weissenberger J and Aguzzi A . (1999). Am. J. Pathol., 154, 581–590.
Van Meir E, Sawamura Y, Diserens AC, Hamou MF and de Tribolet N . (1990). Cancer Res., 50, 6683–6688.
Van Wagoner NJ, Oh JW, Repovic P and Benveniste EN . (1999). J. Neurosci., 19, 5236–5244.
Wei LH, Kuo ML, Chen CA, Chou CH, Lai KB, Lee CN and Hsieh CY . (2003). Oncogene, 22, 1517–1527.
Weissenberger J, Steinbach JP, Malin G, Spada S, Rulicke T and Aguzzi A . (1997). Oncogene, 14, 2005–2013.
Zhong Z, Wen Z and Darnell Jr JE . (1994). Science, 264, 95–98.
Acknowledgements
We thank M Economou for excellent technical assistance and WR Hess for artwork. We are grateful to C Müller and PC Heinrich for discussions and to JP Steinbach for critically reading the manuscript. This work was supported by grants from the Bernese Cancer League and from the Dr med hc Erwin Braun Foundation, Basel, to JW and JW.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Weissenberger, J., Loeffler, S., Kappeler, A. et al. IL-6 is required for glioma development in a mouse model. Oncogene 23, 3308–3316 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.onc.1207455
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.onc.1207455