NANOG Dominates Interleukin-6-Induced Sphere Formation in Prostate Cancer

Objective: Identifying the dynamics of prostate tumor aggressiveness is essential to find new therapeutics for the treatment. Cancer stem cells contribute to cancer pro-gression by promoting tumor growth and metastasis, resisting treatment, and evad -ing the immune system. Interleukin 6 (IL-6) is a pleiotropic cytokine that functions in inflammation, immune response, etc. However, dysregulated expression of IL-6 plays a pathological role in such conditions as cancer. In this study, we aimed to elucidate the effect of IL-6 on cancer stemness genes in prostate cancer cells. Methods: Enrichment of stem-like cells was achieved through the formation of tumor spheres using the DU-145 cell line. Sphere formation was conducted in a medium sup-plemented with IL-6 and compared to a control group. The number of spheres was quantified, and the resulting pellet was collected for quantitative reverse transcrip-tion polymerase chain reaction analysis to assess the impact of IL-6 induction on the expression of stemness-related genes. Results: Tumor sphere numbers and sizes increased in IL-6-induced environment. NANOG expression elevated in an IL-6-enriched environment compared to the non-treated spheres. Our results demonstrated that IL-6 induction in prostate tumor spheres upregulates NANOG gene expression. Conclusion: Inducing IL-6 in prostate tumor spheres stimulates stemness biomarker NANOG genes. NANOG may be suggested as a therapeutic target for metastatic pros-tate cancer.