Inhibitory anti-tumor effects of interleukin-4 on Philadelphia chromosome-positive acute lymphocytic leukemia and other hematopoietic malignancies.

IL-4 has been shown to possess a broader spectrum of biological activities. Recently, anti-tumor activities of IL-4 on malignant tumors including hematopoietic tumors has been revealed in vitro or in vivo. We investigated the effect of recombinant human (rhIL-4) on the in vitro growth of human leukemia cells and demonstrated the inhibitory anti-tumor activity of rhIL-4 on Ph1-positive ALL cells in association with the decreased activity of cellular tyrosine kinase. This finding suggests that the clinical evaluation of rhIL-4 may offer promising therapeutic possibility for patients with Ph1-positive ALL. In this paper, we presented the IL-4-dependent inhibition of Ph1-positive ALL cells and reviewed implications for mechanism of IL-4-dependent inhibition and anti-tumor activities of IL-4.