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Humanized Anti-Interleukin-6 Receptor Antibody Suppresses Tumor Angiogenesis and In vivo Growth of Human Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma

2009; American Association for Cancer Research; Volume: 15; Issue: 17 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1158/1078-0432.ccr-09-0287

1557-3265

Satoru Shinriki, Hirofumi Jono, Kazutoshi Ota, Mitsuharu Ueda, Mareina Kudo, Tomoko Ota, Yuichi Oike, Motoyoshi Endo, Mutsuko Ibusuki, Akimitsu Hiraki, Hideki Nakayama, Yoshihiro Yoshitake, Masanori Shinohara, Yukio Ando,

Virus-based gene therapy research

The biological effect of interleukin-6 (IL-6) signaling in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) and whether IL-6 receptor (IL-6R)-mediated signaling can be a therapeutic target for OSCC are unclear. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of inhibition of IL-6R-mediated signaling on OSCC progression and to evaluate the availability of tocilizumab, a humanized antihuman IL-6R antibody, as a therapeutic agent for OSCC.We evaluated expression levels of IL-6 and IL-6R in 58 OSCC tissues and 4 OSCC cell lines by real-time quantitative reverse transcription-PCR and/or immunohistochemstry. We investigated the effects of tocilizumab on OSCC growth in vitro and in xenografts. Xenografts were analyzed by immunohistochemistry for phosphorylated signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (pSTAT3), Ki-67, and CD31, and terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP nick end labeling assay was done.Expression levels of IL-6 at both mRNA and protein levels in OSCC tissues were significantly higher than those in normal mucosal tissues. In addition, OSCC cell lines expressed higher levels of both IL-6 and IL-6R mRNA than did HaCaT keratinocytes. Tocilizumab significantly reduced in vivo growth of SAS cells with a drastic reduction of STAT3 phosphorylation in tumor cells in mice. Inhibition of IL-6 signaling significantly decreased vascular endothelial growth factor mRNA expression in SAS, and microvessel density and vessel diameter in SAS tumors in tocilizumab-treated mice.Therapeutic approaches targeting IL-6R by tocilizumab may be effective for OSCC treatment by at least inhibiting angiogenesis.