%0 Journal Article
%T Cytokine and immunoglobulin production by PWM-stimulated peripheral and tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes of undifferentiated nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) patients
%A Lilia Fliss-Jaber
%A Radhia Houissa-Kastally
%A Kamel Bouzouita
%A Naceur Khediri
%A Ridha Khelifa
%J BMC Cancer
%D 2004
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1471-2407-4-68
%X Lymphocytes from 17 patients and 17 controls were cultured in the presence of Pokeweed mitogen (PWM) for 12 days and their culture supernatants were tested for interleukins and immunoglobulins by specific enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA). Data were analysed using Student's t-test and probability values below 5% were considered significant.The data obtained indicated that TIL of NPC patients produced significantly more IL-2 (p = 0,0002), IL-10 (p = 0,020), IgM (p= 0,0003) and IgG (p < 0,0001) than their PBL. On the other hand, patients PBL produced significantly higher levels of IL-2 (p = 0,022), IL-10 (p = 0,016) and IgM (p = 0,004) than those of controls. No significant differences for IL-6 and IgA were observed.Taken together, our data reinforce the possibility of an imbalance in immunoregulatory interleukin production in NPC patients. An increased ability to produce cytokines such as IL-10 may underlie the discrepancy between humoral and cellular immune responses characteristic of NPC.Undifferentiated nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is a malignant epithelial tumor characterized by a heavy infiltration of non malignant lymphocytes and most of these tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) have been shown to be T cells [1].The Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is causally associated with this malignancy since viral DNA is regularly present in the malignant epithelial cells but not in the neighbouring normal tissues. In addition, NPC patients show a specific pattern of humoral responses against EBV antigens [2].Viral proteins known to be expressed in NPC tumor cells are the EBV-encoded nuclear antigen 1 (EBNA-1) and the latent membrane proteins LMP-1 in 35 to 65% of cases, and LMP-2 [3,4]. The latent membrane proteins have been shown to serve as targets for EBV-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) from normal seropositive individuals [5,6].Recently, CD8 positive EBV-specific cytotoxic T cell clones were isolated from the peripheral blood and tumors of NPC patients [7]
%U http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2407/4/68