Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is a solid tumour of the kidney and is the most common renal neoplasm. Despite the presence of tumour infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) in RCC, these tumours continue to progress in vivo suggesting a poor host immune response to the tumour, and the suppression of TIL effector function. Cytokines are key molecules that modulate the function of T cells. The possibility is investigated that the local production of cytokines in RCC contributes to immunosuppression of TIL. The expression of pro-inflammatory (IFN-gamma/IL-2) and immunosuppressive (IL-10/TGF-beta) cytokine mRNA transcripts was determined in RCC, normal kidney and peripheral blood of RCC patients using a semi-quantitative reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) with cytokine-specific primers. Following Southern blot hybridization of the PCR products with internal radiolabelled oligonucleotide probes, cytokine transcript levels were measured by densitometry and expressed relative to the glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase densitometry score. With the exception of IL-10, there were no differences in expression of cytokine mRNA transcripts between the peripheral blood of patients and normal healthy individuals. It was found that TGF-beta transcripts were well represented in normal kidney and RCC. In contrast, the expression of IFN-gamma transcripts, while low in the majority of samples, was significantly increased in RCC when compared to normal kidney (P=0.05). The IL-2 and IL-10 transcripts showed a more variable expression in normal kidney and RCC, with no significant differences in expression between the sample groups. The data demonstrating pro-inflammatory and immunosuppressive cytokine expression in RCC do not support a prominent immunosuppressive cytokine profile in these tumours.