Interleukin 32 expression in human melanoma

BACKGROUND: Various proinflammatory cytokines can be detected within the melanoma tumor microenvironment. Interleukin 32 (IL32) is produced by T cells, NK cells and monocytes/macrophages, but also by a subset of melanoma cells. We sought to better understand the biology of IL32 in human melanoma. METHODS: We analyzed RNA sequencing data from 53 in-house established human melanoma cell lines and 479 melanoma tumors from The Cancer Genome Atlas dataset. We evaluated global gene expression patterns associated with IL32 expression. We also evaluated the impact of proinflammatory molecules TNFα and IFNγ on IL32 expression and dedifferentiation in melanoma cell lines in vitro. In order to study the transcriptional regulation of IL32 in these cell lines, we cloned up to 10.5 kb of the 5′ upstream region of the human IL32 gene into a luciferase reporter vector. RESULTS: A significant proportion of established human melanoma cell lines express IL32, with its expression being highly correlated with a dedifferentiation genetic signature (high AXL/low MITF). Non IL32-expressing differentiated melanoma cell lines exposed to TNFα or IFNγ can be induced to express the three predominant isoforms (α, β, γ) of IL32. Cis-acting elements within this 5′ upstream region of the human IL32 gene appear to govern both induced and constitutive gene expression. In the tumor microenvironment, IL32 expression is highly correlated with genes related to T cell infiltration, and also positively correlates with high AXL/low MITF dedifferentiated gene signature. CONCLUSIONS: Expression of IL32 in human melanoma can be induced by TNFα or IFNγ and correlates with a treatment-resistant dedifferentiated genetic signature. Constitutive and induced expression are regulated, in part, by cis-acting sequences within the 5′ upstream region. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12967-019-1862-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.