(The) effects of interleukin-7 to growing pattern of tumor and composition of tumor-infiltrating T cells

Abstract

As the cancer therapy reaches the age of immunotherapy, interest in therapeutic methods of modulating immune cells is growing up. In this context, anti-tumor effects and immunomodulatory functions of cytokines on tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes are also actively studied. In this thesis, we investigated the differences in the growth pattern of tumor and the composition of tumor-infiltrating T cells(TILs) according to the timing of administration of interleukin-7(IL-7), a kind of cytokine, before or after exhaustion of tumor infiltrating T cells based on flow cytometry. As a result, administration of IL-7 showed excellent anti-tumor effect before exhaustion of TILs but it did not show significant therapeutic effect after exhaustion. These result shows that anti-tumor effects of drugs can be changed depending on the timing of administration. It also suggests that studies aiming at cancer therapy should mimic the actual patients situation and should be administered after exhaustion of TIL.