The expression of interferon receptor α/β in human pancreatic cancer in nude mice is essential for tumor response to interferon α treatment

Potentials of interferon therapy in the treatment of pancreatic cancer

Pancreatic cancer is a highly aggressive malignancy with limited treatment options. To improve survival for patients with pancreatic cancer, research has focused on other treatment modalities like adding biological modulators such as type-I interferons (IFNs). Type I IFNs (ie, IFN-α/IFN-β) have antiproliferative, antiviral, and immunoregulatory activities. Furthermore, they are able to induce apoptosis, exert cell cycle blocking, and sensitize tumor cells for chemo- and radiotherapy. A few years ago in vitro, in vivo, and several clinical trials have been described regarding adjuvant IFN-α therapy in the treatment of pancreatic cancer. Some studies reported a remarkable increase in the 2- and 5-year survival. Unfortunately, the only randomized clinical trial did not show a significant increase in overall survival, although the increased median survival implicated that some patients in the experimental group benefited from the adjuvant IFN-α therapy. Furthermore, encouraging in vitro and in vivo data points to a possible role for adjuvant IFN therapy. However, up till now, the use of IFNs in the treatment of pancreatic cancer remains controversial. This review, therefore, aims to describe, based on the available data, whether there is a distinct role for IFN therapy in the treatment of pancreatic cancer.

Influence of type-I Interferon receptor expression level on the response to type-I Interferons in human pancreatic cancer cells

Pancreatic cancer is a highly aggressive malignancy with limited treatment options. Type-I interferons (e.g. IFN-α/-β) have several anti-tumour activities. Over the past few years, clinical studies evaluating the effect of adjuvant IFN-α therapy in pancreatic cancer yielded equivocal results. Although IFN-α and-β act via the type-I IFN receptor, the role of the number of receptors present on tumour cells is still unknown. Therefore, this study associated, for the first time, in a large panel of pancreatic cancer cell lines the effects of IFN-α/-β with the expression of type-I IFN receptors. The anti-tumour effects of IFN-α or IFN-β on cell proliferation and apoptosis were evaluated in 11 human pancreatic cell lines. Type-I IFN receptor expression was determined on both the mRNA and protein level. After 7 days of incubation, IFN-α significantly reduced cell growth in eight cell lines by 5–67%. IFN-β inhibited cell growth statistically significant in all cell lines by 43–100%. After 3 days of treatment, IFN-β induced significantly more apoptosis than IFN-α. The cell lines variably expressed the type-I IFN receptor. The maximal inhibitory effect of IFN-α was positively correlated with the IFNAR-1 mRNA (P < 0.05, r = 0.63), IFNAR-2c mRNA (P < 0.05, r = 0.69) and protein expression (P < 0.05, r = 0.65). Human pancreatic cancer cell lines variably respond to IFN-α and-β. The expression level of the type-I IFN receptor is of predictive value for the direct anti-tumour effects of IFN-α treatment. More importantly, IFN-β induces anti-tumour effects already at much lower concentrations, is less dependent on interferon receptor expression and seems, therefore, more promising than IFN-α.