There is convincing evidence that IL-18 plays an important role in various pathologies (i.e. inflammatory diseases, cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, Crohn's disease and others).
We show that deficient IL-18 production occurs at initial inflammation stages of disease, and that IL-1β production is more significantly impaired in Casp11<sup>-/-</sup> colons during established CAC.
In this study, we investigated IL-18 expression and its correlation with patient survival and immune cell infiltration in melanoma using cancer gene expression data publicly available through various databases.
Inflammasomes, which are intracellular multi-protein complexes, promote acute and chronic inflammation via interleukin-1β or interleukin-18 maturation, and they are known targets for metabolic syndromes and cancer.
No consensus exists on the impact of polymorphisms in cytokines (such as interleukin IL-8 and IL-18) on cancer risk; moreover, there is very little evidence regarding head and neck cancer (HNC).
Short- and long-term administration of interleukin-18 appeared to have no adverse effects on the kidney in these mice, suggesting that administration may be a safe and novel treatment for metabolic diseases and cancer.
Interleukin-18 (IL-18) is a multifunctional cytokine that augments interferon-γ production and acts as an important immunomediator in the development of several types of cancer.
In this article, we aimed to present an updated review on these aspects regarding the contribution of IL-18 to important diseases such as cancer, autoimmunity, and inflammatory-mediated conditions including allergic diseases, metabolic syndrome, and atherosclerosis.
We made the following important findings: (1) Caspase-1 exerts its regulatory effects on the majority of genes in a tissue-specific manner; (2) Caspase-1 regulatory genes partially cooperates with genes regulated by sirtuin-1 during organ injury and inflammation in adipose tissue but not in the liver; (3) Caspase-1 cooperates with IL-1β in regulating less than half of the genes involved in cardiovascular disease, organismal injury, and cancer in mouse liver; (4) The meta-analysis identifies 40 caspase-1 globally regulated genes across tissues, suggesting that caspase-1 globally regulates many novel pathways; and (5) The meta-analysis identified new cooperatively and non-cooperatively regulated genes in caspase-1, IL-1β, IL-18, and Sirt-1 pathways.
Several lines of evidence suggests that in cancer the inflammasome is positively associated with characteristics such as elevated levels of IL-1β and IL-18, activation of NF-κB signaling, enhanced mitochondrial oxidative stress, and activation of autophagic process.
The current meta-analysis suggests that the -607C/A polymorphism in IL-18 gene promoter is associated with a significantly increased risk of cancer, especially of breast cancer, nasopharyngeal carcinoma and esophageal cancer and in Asian and Mixed populations.
Increased IL-18 levels in the serum of cancer patients correlated with malignancy, and IL-18 acts a crucial factor for cell migration in gastric cancer and melanoma.
Single nucleotide polymorphisms in the promoter region of interleukin-18 (IL-18), an inflammatory cytokine, have been linked to susceptibility to many diseases, including cancer and immune dysfunction.
The association of -137G>C polymorphism in the promoter region of IL-18 with cancer risk is still elusive based on current genetic association studies.
The present meta-analysis suggests that the -607C/A polymorphisms in IL-18 gene promoter is associated with a significantly increased risk of cancer, especially for nasopharyngeal carcinoma and esophageal cancer and in Asian population.
We assessed the strength of the association of IL-18 gene promoter -607 C>A and -137G>C polymorphisms with cancer risk and performed sub-group analyses by cancer types, ethnicities, source of controls and sample size.
Our pooled analysis supported that IL-18 is a good candidate for large-scale epidemiological case-control studies that may be a low-penetrance susceptibility biomarker for cancer.