Abstract
Patients with head and neck cancers that produce a high concentration of granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) or patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinomas who have elevated serum interleukin-6 (IL-6) concentrations have been found previously to be at significant risk for tumor invasion to adjacent organs as well as frequent metastases. This suggests that G-CSF and Il-6 enhance the invasiveness and metastatic potential of cancer cells. We studied the in vitro invasiveness of head and neck cancer cell lines with and without recombinant human G-CSF (rhG-CSF) and human IL-6 (hIL-6) in an extracellular matrix membrane system. The degree of invasiveness was affected by incubating cells with hIL-6, but not by pre-incubating the cell-matrix with hIL-6. The maximum concentration of hIL-6 for enhanced invasiveness was approximately 5,000 u/ml. In addition, rhG-CSF enhanced the invasiveness of tumor cells that produced large amounts of G-CSF. The present study also suggests that tumor cells tend to invade and metastasize in an environment rich in hIL-6.
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Received: 3 November 1997 / Accepted: 1 April 1998
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Nishino, H., Miyata, M. & Kitamura, K. The effect of interleukin-6 on enhancing the invasiveness of head and neck cancer cells in vitro. European Archives of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology 255, 468–472 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1007/s004050050101
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s004050050101