Surprisingly, moreover, CD8+CXCR5+ T cells produced IL-21, which induced B cells to differentiate into IgG-producing plasmablasts and to play a key role in humoral immunity in HCC.
This is the first study to report a relationship between an intronic polymorphism in IL-21 gene and HCC and metastasis risk in the Egyptian people, in addition to identifying a potential new marker for the early detection and treatment of HCC.
Exogenous IL-21 could reinvigorate NK cells from HCC patients, resulting in significantly increased levels of cytotoxicity, degranulation, and cytokine expression.
Finally, we showed that the transcriptional levels of IL-21 in the peritumoral region and IL-21R within the tumor are associated with survival and recurrence of HCC patients.
Our findings suggest that the rs12508721T/C and rs2221903A/G polymorphisms of IL-21 gene are associated with the susceptibility of HBV-related HCC and chronic HBV infection.
In this study, we investigated the influence of IL-21 on HBV replication based on human hepatoma Huh7.93 cells co-cultured with human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) and the possible correlation among IL-21, interferon-γ, tumour necrosis factor-α and IL-10.