THE CORRELATION OF THYMIDINE PHOSPHORYLASE-ACTIVITY WITH THE EXPRESSION OF INTERLEUKIN-1-ALPHA, INTERFERON-ALPHA AND INTERFERON-GAMMA IN HUMAN COLORECTAL-CARCINOMA

Thymidine phosphorylase (dThdPase) is an angiogenic enzyme and seems t o be related to an angiogenesis in human colorectal carcinoma, The inc idence of dThdPase-positive cells was significantly correlated with mi crovessel count in 21 human colorectal carcinomas, Interleukin 1 alpha (IL-1 alpha), tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha), interferon alp ha (IFN-alpha) interferon gamma (IFN-gamma) induce dThdPase activity i n human cancer cell lines, To study whether this phenomenon occurs in the human colorectal carcinomas, we examined the correlation between d ThdPase activity and the expression levels of IL-1 alpha, TNF-alpha, I FN-alpha and IFN-gamma in colorectal carcinoma tissues, dThdPase activ ity was assayed by the methods of Friedkin and Robert, and the express ion level of IL-1 alpha, TNF-alpha, IFN-alpha and IFN-gamma was determ ined by ELISA. dThdPase activity was significantly correlated with the amount of IL-1 alpha (n = 19, r = 0.347, P = 0.0001), INF-alpha (n = 18, r = 0.717, P = 0.0008), and IFN-gamma (n = 4, r = 0.9777, P = 0.02 34) in human colorectal carcinomas, However, the dThdPase activity was not correlated with the amount of TNF-a (n = 21, r = 0.235, P = 0.268 2), These results suggested that the expression levels of IL-1 alpha, IFN-alpha and IFN-gamma are correlated with dThdPase activity in human colorectal carcinomas and that these cytokines may cause angiogenesis by inducing the expression of dThdPase.