Immunomodulatory agents: the cytokines

Immunohistochemical expression of interleukin-4, -6, -8, and -12 in inflammatory cells in surrounding invasive front of oral squamous cell carcinoma

BACKGROUND

Cytokines play important roles in the diverse interactions between tumor microenvironment and malignant cells. This study evaluated the association of interleukin (IL)-4, -6, -8, and -12 expressions and clinicopathologic parameters of 35 primary oral squamous cell carcinomas (OSCCs).

METHODS

Patients were staged according to the TNM clinical staging. Malignancy grading of invasive front was evaluated in hematoxylin-eosin (H&E)-stained slides. Immunohistochemical technique was performed on frozen tissue sections. Association between clinicopathologic parameters and IL expression were analyzed using nonparametric Kruskal-Wallis (alpha = 0.05) and Mann-Whitney U tests, with Bonferroni correction. Correlations between interleukins were analyzed by the Spearman coefficient.

RESULTS

Expression of ILs was verified in all samples; however, this finding was not related to clinicopathologic parameters. It was not the observed correlation between ILs.

CONCLUSIONS

Expression of IL-4, -6, -8, and -12 in the invasive front of OSCC is not involved with the clinicopathologic parameters of the disease.

Differential analysis of human leukocytes by dielectrophoretic field-flow-fractionation

The differential analysis of human leukocytes has many important biological and medical applications. In this work, dielectrophoretic field-flow-fractionation (DEP-FFF), a cell-separation technique that exploits the differences in the density and dielectric properties of cells, was used to separate the mixtures of the major human leukocyte subpopulations (T- and B-lymphocytes, monocytes, and granulocytes). The separation was conducted in a thin chamber equipped with an array of microfabricated interdigitated electrodes on the bottom surface, and the separation performance was characterized by on-line flow cytometry. To investigate optimal separation conditions for different leukocyte mixtures, elution fractograms at various DEP field frequencies were obtained for each leukocyte subtype. With appropriately chosen conditions, high separation performance was achieved in separating T- (or B-) lymphocytes from monocytes, T- (or B-) lymphocytes from granulocytes, and monocytes from granulocytes. DEP-FFF does not involve cell-labeling or cell-modification step, and provides a new approach to hematological analysis.