Study Of Changing Regulation Of Anti-inflammatory Cytokines In Yin Deficiency Syndrome Of Human Lung Cancer

It has been a notable advantage of treating and preventing cancer through the combination of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and Western Medicine (WM) method, which is also an important approach in clinical therapy of cancer. Accumulating clinical evidence indicates that many cancer patients are accompanied by deficiency syndrome in the progression and evolution or in the advanced stage of cancer. Yin deficiency syndrome is a basic type of deficiency syndrome and has been studied for decades. Clinical data of TCM have reported that lung cancer is one of the typical tumors that can cause Yin deficiency syndrome. The treatment effect of lung cancer is relatively bad, because most of them are at advanced stage when diagnosed. Many patients at advanced stage lung cancer may be accompanied by Yin deficiency syndrome, which will decrease the immunity, increase the incidence of complication and death rate, influence the quality of patients' life. It is necessary to observe the correlation between TCM and the biological behavior of lung cancer and to study the essence of Yin deficiency syndrome in the diseases. The aims are to understand the molecular pathophysiologic mechanism of the occurrence of Yin deficiency syndrome and improve the treatment effect of cancer by combining TCM and WM method.There are many reports about the essence of Yin deficiency syndrome. Prof. Weixi Shen proposed that the essence of Yin deficiency syndrome can be cytokines . The molecular pathophysiologic mechanism of the occurrence of Yin deficiency syndrome can be due to the perturbation of cytokine network characterized by the relative elevation of the gene expression and the biology activity of interleukin-1 (IL-1), tumour necrosis factor (TNF) and so on, which result in the disorder of cytokine network. The entire biology phenomenon and the course of disease caused by cytokines are the final results of a series of complicated control in the cytokine network.The main anti-inflammatory cytokines, which are produced by TH2 cells, include interleukin-4 (IL-4) interleukin-10 (IL-10) interleukin-13 (IL-13) interleukin-1 receptor antagonist (IL-1Ra) and so on. Based on the principle that the essence of Yin deficiency syndrome is cytokines, this experement aims at observing the changes of anti-inflammatory cytokines in lung cancer with Yin deficiency syndrome and analyzing the relationship between anti-inflammatory cytokines and lung cancer with Yin deficiency syndrome.ObjectiveTo study the changing regulation of anti-inflammatory cytokines in Yin deficiency syndrome of lung cancer and other diseases with Yin deficiency syndrome, analyze the relationship between anti-inflammatory cytokines and lung cancer accompanied by Yin deficiency syndrome.Materials and Methods1. To select 20 cases of lung cancer patients with Yin deficiency syndrome and 20 cases of that without Yin deficiency syndrome. They were divided into two groups: non-Yin deficiency control group and Yin deficiency group. The cytokines IL-4, IL-10 and IL-13 were determined by immunohistochemical (IHC) study in the 40 routinely paraffin embedded specimens of lung tissues resected from the lung cancer patients in the two groups.2. One case of Yin deficiency syndrome of lung cancer and one case of non-Yin deficiency syndrome of lung cancer were selected. In addition we chose one case of Yin deficiency syndrome of gastric cancer, one case of non-Yin deficiency syndrome of gastric cancer, one case of Yin deficiency syndrome of colon cancer and one case of non-Yin deficiency syndrome of colon cancer. Affymetrix Human Genome U133 plus 2.0 Array gene chip was used to analyze the gene expression profiling in the peripheral blood of all the 6 cases. We observed and analyzed the changing regulation of anti-inflammatory cytokines in Yin deficiency syndrome of lung cancer and in other cancers with Yin deficiency syndrome.3. Statistical analysis: the data studied by immunohistochemical method were analyzed by SPSS10.0 statistical software. x~2 test was carried out to determine if the change was statistically significant,α=0.05 was considered statistically significant.Results1. The results determined by immunohistochemical study suggested that the expression of IL-10 increased significantly in Yin deficiency group compared with non-Yin deficiency group (P<0.05). The expression of IL-13 decreased significantly in Yin deficiency group compared with non-Yin deficiency group (P<0.05). The expression of IL-4 had no significant difference between the two groups (P>0.05).2. The results of gene chip demonstrated that the gene expression of IL-10 was up-regulated in Yin deficiency syndrome of lung cancer in contrast with non-Yin deficiency syndrome of lung cancer, while the gene expression of IL-10RαIL-10Rβ, IL-1Ra and IL-13Rαwas down- regulated, the gene expression of IL-4 IL-4R, IL-13 didn't change between the two cases of lung cancer; in contrast with non Yin deficiency syndrome of gastric cancer, the gene expression of IL-1Ra was up-regulated in Yin deficiency syndrome of gastric cancer, while the gene expression of IL-4, IL-4R, IL-10Rα, IL-13Rαwas down-regulated. The expression of IL-4, IL-4R, IL-13 gene didn't change between the two cases of gastric cancer; In contrast with non-Yin deficiency syndrome of colon cancer, the gene expression of IL-1Ra IL-4R, IL-10Rα, IL-10Rβwas down-regulated in the colon cancer with Yin deficiency syndrome, while the gene expression of IL-4, IL-10, IL-13Rαdidn't change between the two cases of colon cancer;Conclusions1. The expression level of IL-4 and IL-4R remain almost the same in Yin deficiency syndrome of human lung cancer.2. The expression level of IL-10 was higher in Yin deficiency syndrome of human lung cancer than in non-Yin deficiency syndrome of human lung cancer.3. The expression level of IL-10R, IL-13, IL-13Rαand IL-1Ra were lower in Yin deficiency syndrome of human lung cancer than in non-Yin deficiency syndrome of human lung cancer.4. The occurrence and evolution of Yin deficiency syndrome was due to thedown-regulation of expression of anti-inflammatory cytokines. 5. We supposed that the down-regulation of anti-inflammatory cytokines or their receptors induced the decrease of the biology activity of anti-inflammatory cytokines in Yin deficiency syndrome. The gene expression and bioactivity of pro-inflammatory cytokines increased absolutely or relatively. The unbalance between pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory cytokines caused the disorder of cytokine network which resulted in the signs and symptoms of Yin deficiency syndrome6. The changing regulation of anti-inflammatory cytokines in different diseases with Yin deficiency syndrome had certain heterogeneity.