REVIEW article
Front. Immunol.
Sec. Cytokines and Soluble Mediators in Immunity
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2025.1524026
This article is part of the Research TopicCytokine Network Dynamics: Influence on Autoimmune Disorders and Cancer TherapyView all 9 articles
Role of interleukin-16 (IL-16) in human diseases: a novel potential therapeutic target
Provisionally accepted
- 1Hospital for Special Surgery, New York, New York, United States
- 2Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, United States
- 3Karolinska Institutet (KI), Solna, Stockholm, Sweden
- 4Department of Medicine, Solna, Karolinska Institutet (KI), Solna, Sweden
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Interleukin (IL)-16 is expressed mostly by the cells of the human immune system. Upon cell activation IL-16 is cleaved, forming two functional proteins, one regulating cell cycle and the other acting as chemoattractant for the cells carrying CD4 or CD9.Increased levels of IL-16 are found in the circulation and at the sites of inflammation, infection and cancer. Polymorphisms in the IL-16 gene have been coupled to several of these conditions and high IL-16 has been suggested as a disease biomarker. Using unbiased proteomic approach we and others independently identified IL-16 as a biomarker of severe lupus nephritis, and top-expressed cytokine in skin lesions of lupus erythematosus.Recently, an unbiased investigation identified IL-16 as a top candidate for novel drug target. Blockade of IL-16 showed positive therapeutic effects in several animal models of human disease with low rate of side effects.Importantly, it has been recently demonstrated that IL-16 can be released during pyroptosis, a proinflammatory cell death pathway. This finding disclosed a novel role of IL-16 as a mediator of response to the proinflammatory cell death and may explain why IL-16 is detected at the sites of inflammation, infection or cancer.In this review we cover the knowledge on the biology of IL-16 and its importance in human diseases. We aim that this manuscript will be informative and prove benefits of possible therapeutic blockade of IL-16.
Keywords: Cytokine - immunological terms, Interleukin-16, Inflammation, Infection, Cancer, tumour
Received: 06 Nov 2024; Accepted: 13 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Niewold, Lehman, Gunnarsson, Meves and Oke. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Vilija Oke, Department of Medicine, Solna, Karolinska Institutet (KI), Solna, Sweden
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