Sandbox Reserved 162: Difference between revisions

As IL-6 plays many parts in the body, research is continually discovering new roles in which it plays. Disregulated production of IL6 and its receptor are implicated in the pathogenesis of many diseases including diabetes, atherosclerosis, depression, Alzheimer's Disease, systemic lupus erythematosus, prostate cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, and multiple myeloma. A good correlation has been found between levels of IL-6 and bone loss in patients with Paget's disease and multiple myeloma. In those patients, higher levels of IL-6 correlated to higher rates of bone loss. Additionally, IL-6 levels decreased with increasing levels of estrogen. These findings strongly suggest that IL-6 plays a key roll in post-menopausal bone loss (Citation). Early research, where bone marrow cells used in transplants were precultured with IL-6 and IL-3, showed an increase in post-transplant cell survival rate from 20% to 90% (Citation). If this culture system can be expanded for human stem cells, it may be used in bone marrow tansplantation (Citation). Other research has indicated that IL-6 is an important factor in malignant cells of Kaposis sarcoma and multiple myelome (Citation).