Paradoxical enhancement of interleukin-2-mediated cytotoxicity against K562 cells by addition of a low dose of methotrexate.

In vitro effects of methotrexate (MTX) on interleukin-2(IL-2)-mediated cytotoxicity of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) were studied. PBMC were incubated with human recombinant IL-2 (25 U/ml) for 72 h; during the last 24 h, various concentrations (10 pM-1 microM) of MTX were added to the culture. Cytotoxicity against k562 cells was measured by a 4-h 51Cr-release assay. The IL-2-mediated cytotoxicity was paradoxically increased at around a concentration (10 nM) MTX. Such a low concentration of MTX showed no anti-proliferative effect on cell growth. This enhancement with 10 nM MTX was shown only in an E-rosette+ (E+) population, but not in E-rosette- (E-). In addition, when E+ cells were treated with an anti-CD16 monoclonal antibody plus complement after incubation with IL-2 and MTX, MTX-induced enhancement was lost, suggesting that an E+CD16+ cell population was mainly involved in this augmentation. Positively sorted E+CD16+ cells showed similar enhancement of cytotoxicity after treatment with IL-2 plus MTX. On the other hand, MTX treatment did not show the phenotypical changes including of the E+CD16+ cells, indicating that this treatment did not affect the differentiation and proliferation of the specific cell subset. Our results indicate that a low dose of MTX could have a role in the regulation of immunological anti-cancer surveillance systems through the natural killer and lymphokine-activated cytotoxic cells.