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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Here, we demonstrate that interleukin-18 (IL-18)-secreting CAR T cells exhibit enhanced in vivo expansion and persistence and significantly increase long-term survival in syngeneic mouse models of both hematological and solid malignancies.
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).
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.
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).