Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Involvement of TNF-alpha and IL-10 in breast cancer and patient survival

Lijuan An, Xinman Dou, Mingli Wang, Wenjuan Luo, Qiang Ma, Xiaokang Liu

The Fifth Ward of General Surgery, The Second Hospital of Lanzhou University, Lanzhou City, Gansu Province 730030, China;

For correspondence:- Xiaokang Liu Email: KathrynGarzajyx@yahoo.com Tel:+869318942262

Accepted: 18 September 2020 Published: 30 October 2020

Citation: An L, Dou X, Wang M, Luo W, Ma Q, Liu X. Involvement of TNF-alpha and IL-10 in breast cancer and patient survival. Trop J Pharm Res 2020; 19(10):2033-2039 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v19i10.2

© 2020 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To investigate the involvement of tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α) and interleukin 10 (IL-10) in the pathogenesis of breast cancer in vivo as well as the activity of ten Chinese herbal compounds in human breast cancer (MCF-7) cell proliferation in vitro.

Methods: In the in vivo study, the association of serum TNF-α and IL-10 with breast cancer cell invasiveness and prognosis was determined in female patients (n = 192) with breast cancer, while in the in vitro study, ten herbal Chinese compounds were screened for their effectiveness against MCF-7 cells. The levels of TNF-α, IL-10, estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR) and human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER2/neu) were assayed using their respective enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kits. Molecular docking was used to determine the lead compound(s) that can effectively inhibit TNF-α and IL-10.

Results: Raised serum levels of TNF-α and IL-10 were significantly associated with breast cancer cell invasiveness and poor prognosis (p < 0.05). Moreover, there was a strong association between breast cancer prognosis and the expression levels of ER, PR and HER2/neu. Serum TNF-α and IL-10 levels were significantly elevated in stages II and III patients and in those with lymph node metastasis. Treatment of MCF-7 cells with the herbal compounds significantly reduced the synthesis and release of TNF-α and IL-10 (p < 0.05). The results of molecular docking showed that baicalein and oridonin significantly inhibited TNF- α and IL-10. The two herbal compounds had the highest docking scores for inhibition of cytokines, as well as favorable interaction energies.

Conclusion: These results indicate that TNF-α and IL-10 are involved in the pathogenesis of breast cancer, and that baicalein and oridonin effectively inhibit the proliferation of the cells.

Keywords: Baicalein, Breast cancer, Interleukin 10, Oridonin, Tumor necrosis factor alpha