Rui Li, Stephanie L Ong, Linh M Tran, Zhe Jing, Bin Liu, Stacy J Park, Zi Ling Huang, Tonya C Walser, Eileen L Heinrich, Gina Lee, Ramin Salehi-Rad, William P Crosson, Paul C Pagano, Manash K Paul, Shili Xu, Harvey Herschman, Kostyantyn Krysan, Steven Dubinett
Chronic inflammation facilitates tumor progression. We discovered that a subset of non-small cell lung cancer cells underwent a gradually progressing epithelial-to-mesenchymal (EMT) phenotype following a 21-day exposure to IL-1β, an abundant proinflammatory cytokine in the at-risk for lung cancer pulmonary and the lung tumor microenvironments. Pathway analysis of the gene expression profile and in vitro functional studies revealed that the EMT and EMT-associated phenotypes, including enhanced cell invasion, PD-L1 upregulation, and chemoresistance, were sustained in the absence of continuous IL-1β exposure...
January 15, 2020: Scientific Reports