1. Activation of the IL-6/JAK/STAT3 signaling pathway in human middle ear cholesteatoma epithelium.
- Author
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Liu W, Xie S, Chen X, Rao X, Ren H, Hu B, Yin T, Xiang Y, and Ren J
- Subjects
- Adult, Case-Control Studies, Cell Proliferation, Cholesteatoma, Middle Ear pathology, Ear Ossicles pathology, Ear, Middle pathology, Enzyme Activation, Epithelial Cells pathology, Female, Humans, Immunohistochemistry, Male, Phosphorylation, Cholesteatoma, Middle Ear metabolism, Ear, Middle chemistry, Epithelial Cells chemistry, Interleukin-6 analysis, Janus Kinases analysis, STAT3 Transcription Factor analysis, Signal Transduction
- Abstract
Interleukin-6 (IL-6) is one of the most important cytokines which has been shown to play a critical role in the pathogenesis of cholesteatoma. In this study, we aimed to investigate the expression of interleukin-6 (IL-6) and phosphorylated signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (p-STAT3) in middle ear cholesteatoma epithelium in an effort to determine the role of IL-6/JAK/STAT3 signaling pathway in the pathogenesis of cholesteatoma. Immunohistochemistry was used to examine the expression of IL-6 and p-STAT3 in 25 human middle ear cholesteatoma samples and 15 normal external auditory canal (EAC) epithelium specimens. We also analyzed the relation of IL-6 and p-STAT3 expression levels to the degree of bone destruction in cholesteatoma. We found that the expression of IL-6 and p-STAT3 were significantly higher in cholesteatoma epithelium than in normal EAC epithelium (p<0.05). In cholesteatoma epithelium, a significant positive association was observed between IL-6 and p-STAT3 expression (p<0.05). However, no significant relationships were observed between the degree of bone destruction and the levels of IL-6 and p-STAT3 expression (p>0.05). To conclude, our results support the concept that IL-6/JAK/STAT3 signaling pathway is active and may play an important role in the mechanisms of epithelial hyper-proliferation responsible for cholesteatoma.
- Published
- 2014