Interleukin-37 is highly expressed in regulatory T cells of melanoma patients and enhanced by melanoma cell secretome

Immune suppression is one of the 10 hallmarks of cancer. Interleukin-37 (IL-37), a member of the IL-1 family, inhibits both innate and adaptive immunity, and has been shown to modulate immune responses in various disease conditions. Yet, IL-37 has rarely been investigated in cancer patients, and its biological role in cancer remains to be elucidated. In this study, we investigated the gene expression of IL-37 in age- and sex-matched blood samples of healthy individuals and melanoma patients, and demonstrated upregulation of IL-37 messenger RNA (mRNA) in the blood samples of melanoma patients. By further analyzing immune cell subsets responsible for the upregulated IL-37 expression, we discovered that IL-37 mRNA was highly expressed in T cells and granulocytes, with the highest expression in regulatory T (T-reg) cells in healthy individuals, and that IL-37 mRNA was upregulated in lymphocytes (T, B, and natural killer cells) in melanoma patient blood. Among all cell subsets, T-reg cells from melanoma patients exhibited the highest IL-37 gene expression levels. We provided evidence that melanoma-conditioned media induces IL-37 mRNA and protein expression in multiple lymphocyte populations, particularly in T-reg cells. We further confirmed that the IL-1-mediated secretome from human melanoma cells, specifically transforming growth factor-beta, induces IL-37 mRNA expression in human T-reg cells. Our results suggest a potential immunosuppressive role for IL-1 and IL-37 in melanoma tumorigenesis. Highly elevated IL-37 in specific lymphocyte populations could serve as a biomarker for tumor-induced immunosuppression.