Enhancement of
Macrophage Cytotoxicity by Overexpression of Exogenous NF-IL6 Gene
LIU Hu-Dan, LIU Ding-Gan*
( Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Shanghai Institutes for
Biological Sciences, �–hinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200031,
China )
Abstract NF-IL6(Nuclear
factor for IL-6 expression) is involved in inflammatory reaction, expression of
acute-phase proteins and cytokines, apoptosis and suppression of tumor cells,
and maintenance of macrophage immunological functions. To investigate the role
of highly expressed exogenous NF-IL6 in macrophage tumor cytotoxicity,
a recombinant expression plasmid, pCN, which harbored the codingregion of NF-IL6,
was transfected into murine primary cultured peritoneal resident macrophages by
an improved DEAE-dextran method. Western blot showed the high expression of NF-IL6
in these macrophages.Then the tumor cytotoxicity of the NF-IL6-overexpressing
macrophages from normal and nude mice was measured by an alkaline phosphatase
assay, using the human hepatocarcinoma cell line SMMC 7721 as target
cells.Results showed that the overexpression of NF-IL6 enhanced the
tumor cytotoxicity in both types of macrophages, demonstrating that the
expression level of the NF-IL6 gene was directly related to the
tumoricidal activity in these cells.
Key words murine peritoneal macrophage；NF-IL6；tumor cytotoxicity；DEAE-dextran mediated
transfection；alkaline phosphatase assay
*Corresponding author：Tel,86-21-64374430-340；Fax，86-21-64338357；e-mail,
[email protected]