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Commissariat à lEnergie Atomique (CEA)/Grenoble, Laboratoire de Biochimie et de Biophysique des Systèmes Intégrés (UMR 314 CEA/Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique), Grenoble, France
| Abstract |
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| Introduction |
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The signaling pathways linking chemoattractant receptors to NADPH oxidase activation are far from being elucidated. Stimulation by chemoattractants is accompanied by a rapid increase in Ca2+ and diacylglycerol and subsequently by the activation of protein kinase C (PKC)3 and the phosphorylation of several proteins including p47phox. A correlation has been established between agonist-induced phosphorylation of p47phox and the activation of the respiratory burst (4, 5, 6), but whether PKC is directly involved in this phosphorylation is still a matter of debate. The involvement of PKC in triggering the respiratory burst is supported by the ability of PMA to induce superoxide production, translocation, and phosphorylation of p47phox and by the ability of PKC to phosphorylate p47phox in vitro (7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12). It has also been shown that a recombinant p47phox that had been prephosphorylated by PKC could specifically activate NADPH oxidase in a cell-free system (13).
The Ras-related G protein Rac also contributes to the regulation of NADPH oxidase activity in phagocytic leukocytes (3, 14, 15). The different stages of action of Rac are not completely elucidated. Cell-free studies with neutrophil plasma membrane have shown that, in addition to p47phox and p67phox, the GTP-bound form of Rac is required to initiate the production of superoxide. Rac1 has been identified as the active component in guinea pig macrophages (16), whereas Rac2 was found to be predominant in human neutrophils (17, 18, 19). However, in a cell-free system either of them is able to trigger superoxide production (17, 20, 21). The decrease of Rac protein levels by antisense oligonucleotide strategies or the expression of a Rac-negative dominant result in a reduction of superoxide production, demonstrating the requirement for Rac in intact cell oxidase activation (22, 23). The addition of chemoattractants to neutrophils results in the exchange of GTP for GDP on Rac and in the translocation of this latter to the plasma membrane (24, 25). However, while the translocation of p67phox and p47phox kinetically parallels NADPH oxidase activity, the extent of translocation of Rac2 from the cytosol to the plasma membrane does not correlate with neutrophil NADPH oxidase activity, suggesting that the Rac proteins do not regulate NADPH oxidase activity stoichiometrically (26).
Several studies have demonstrated that the exposure of neutrophils to N-formyl peptides increases phosphatidylinositol-3 kinase (PI3K) activity (27, 28) and p42/44 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) (or Erk1/2) activities (29, 30, 31). The activation of these enzymes was timely correlated with the triggering of NADPH oxidase. Because PI3K inhibitors such as wortmannin (WT) and LY294002 completely abolished the superoxide secretion induced by N-formyl peptides but not that mediated by PMA (32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37), it has been suggested that PI3K is a key component, upstream of PKC, in the transduction pathway involved in chemoattractant-mediated NADPH oxidase activation. However, the role of the p42/44 MAPKs is less clear. On the one hand, a functional link with NADPH oxidase activity is supported by the observation that, among the serine residues of p47phox that are phosphorylated upon stimulation, two are located within consensus sequences for proline-directed kinases (10) and correspond to the sites phosphorylated by Erk2 in vitro (11, 38). Moreover, NADPH oxidase has been found to be inhibited by PD98059, a compound that specifically inhibits the activation of MEK, the upstream kinase of Erk (39, 40, 41, 42). On the other hand, recent studies suggest that even though both chemoattractant- and PMA-mediated MAPK activations coincide with superoxide generation, MAPK and oxidase activities are not functionally correlated (43, 44, 45, 46). Several other studies point out that the p38 stress-activated protein kinase (SAPK) is a better candidate for the regulation of superoxide generation by neutrophils (38, 41, 47, 48, 49, 50).
In the present study, we examined a variant clone of the promyelocytic cell line HL60 for which a PMA-dependent superoxide production could be elicited in DMSO-differentiated cells but only poorly in Bt2cAMP-differentiated cells. In these latter cells, a robust and sustained production of superoxide was however observed when substimulatory (i.e., nanomolar) concentrations of N-formyl peptide were used in association with PMA. This synergistic response was somewhat reminiscent of the numerous patterns of priming described in neutrophils, where nonstimulatory concentrations of chemoattractant (110 nM) potentialized the oxidase response initiated by another agonist (1). This variant HL60 clone appeared to be a suitable tool to delineate the mechanisms of oxidase activation. We examined the status of the already known pathways leading to NADPH oxidase activation (p47phox phosphorylation, Rac, PI3K, and MAPK activations). Our results showed that in addition to the phosphorylation of p47phox, the activation of NADPH oxidase requires a second pathway which most probably involves the activation of Rac in a PI3K and MEK-independent manner.
| Materials and Methods |
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PMA, WT, N-formyl-Met-Leu-Phe-Lys (fMLFK), N6,O-2'-dibutyryl cyclic AMP (Bt2cAMP), DMSO, BSA, myelin basic protein (MBP), 2-ME, leupeptin, benzamidine, pepstatin, aprotinin, PMSF, p-nitrophenylphosphate, pertussis toxin (PTX), cytochrome C, anti-mouse IgG were obtained from Sigma (St. Louis, MO). 4-(2-aminoethyl)-benzenesulfonyl fluoride hydrochloride (AEBSF) was from Boehringer Mannheim (Indianapolis, IN). PD98059 was purchased from Calbiochem-Novabiochem (San Diego, CA). Protein A-Sepharose and protein G-Sepharose 4 fast flow were purchased from Pharmacia Biotech (Uppsala, Sweden). Peroxidase-conjugated protein A was from Bio-Rad (Ivry, France). Anti-rabbit IgGs peroxydase linked Abs and enhanced chemiluminescence Western blotting detection system (ECL) were purchased from Amersham (Les Ulis, France). Anti-Rac1 polyclonal Ab (sc-217), anti-RhoGDI polyclonal Ab (sc-360), and polyclonal Abs against MAPKs Erk1 and -2 (sc-93 and sc-154) were provided by Santa Cruz Biotechnology (Santa Cruz, CA). Abs against PKC isozymes were purchased from Transduction Laboratory (Lexington, KY). Ab against p47phox was raised against the C-terminal peptide (NH2-Y-E-S-T-K-R-K-L-A-S-A-V-OH) that was synthetized by BioCytex (Marseille, France). The anti-c-myc mouse mAb (9E10) and competing c-myc peptide were purchased from Boehringer Mannheim. Cell culture medium, FCS, and geneticin (G418) were from Life Technologies (Grand Island, NY), except for phosphate-free RPMI, which was provided by ICN. (Orsay, France) [33P]Orthophosphoric acid was purchased from Isotopchim (Ganagobie, France). Redivue Pro-mix L-[35S] in vitro cell labeling mix was purchased from Amersham.
Cell culture and differentiation
Promyelocytic HL60 cells were cultured in RPMI 1640-glutaMAX I medium supplemented with 100 U/ml penicillin, 100 µg/ml streptomycin, and 10% of heat inactivated FCS at 37°C in humidified atmosphere of 5% CO2/95% air. Cell differentiation was initiated either with 1.25% DMSO for 6 days when cell density was 0.5 x 106 cells/ml or with 1 mM Bt2cAMP for 3 days. In this latter case, optimal differentiation was obtained when cells were centrifuged and resuspended at a density of 106 cells/ml in fresh complete RPMI before differentiation was initiated.
Isolation of a variant HL60 clone
Promyelocytic HL60 cells were diluted at a density of about 100 cells for 10 ml of conditioned RPMI filtered through a 0.2-µm sterile Millipore (Bedford, MA) filter. Before plating in tissue culture plates, the cell suspension was maintained at 37°C and supplemented with sterile agarose at the final concentration of 0.18%. After 2 wk, clones were picked with a Pasteur pipette, expanded in complete RPMI, and tested for the absence of PMA-induced superoxide production after differentiation with Bt2cAMP.
Superoxide production assay
Cells were washed with PBS and resuspended at a concentration of 4 x 107 cells/ml in PBS containing 0.5 mM CaCl2, 1 mM MgCl2, and 30 mM glucose (buffer A). Preincubation with various inhibitors was accomplished at 37°C for the indicated periods of time. Control cells without inhibitors were incubated in the same conditions. Fifty microliters of the cell suspension, kept at 4°C, were added to 1 ml of prewarmed PBS containing 200 µM of ferricytochrome C. Superoxide formation was initiated by the addition of fMLFK or PMA at the indicated concentrations. Ferricytochrome C reduction was continuously monitored at 550 nm.
Cell lysis, subcellular fractionation, and Western blot analysis of PKC isoforms, RhoGDI, and Rac G proteins
Cells were washed with PBS and resuspended at a concentration of 2 x 107 cells/ml in buffer A. After stimulation with PMA (1 µg/ml) for 3 min, cells were harvested and resuspended into 50 mM Tris-HCl (pH 7.5) containing 2 mM EGTA, 50 mM 2-ME, 10 µg/ml leupeptin, 10 mM benzamidine, 5 µM pepstatin, 0.2 µg/ml aprotinin, and 1 mM PMSF. Cells were disrupted by sonication, and the resulting homogenate was centrifuged (800 x g for 5 min at 4°C) to remove unbroken cells and nuclei. The cytosolic fraction obtained by centrifugation at 100,000 x g for 1 h at 4°C was supplemented with Laemmli sample buffer containing 5 mM DTT. The remaining pellet was solubilized by sonication in Laemmli sample buffer containing 5 mM DTT (51). Samples were denatured by boiling for 5 min, subjected to electrophoresis on a 10% SDS-polyacrylamide gel, and electrotransferred to nitrocellulose. Nonspecific binding was blocked by incubation of the membrane with PBS containing 0.1% Tween-20 (PBS-T) and 3% BSA for 1 h at room temperature. The membrane was then incubated overnight at 4°C with apropriate dilutions (1:250 to 1:1000) of mAbs to the various PKC isozymes in PBS-T containing 3% BSA. After washing in PBS-T, the membrane was incubated with a 1:100 dilution of rabbit anti-mouse Igs (Sigma) in PBS-T containing 1% BSA for 2 h. After washing of the membrane in PBS-T, detection of PKC isozymes was performed using 125I-labeled protein A and autoradiography on Fuji RX films (Fuji Medical Systeme, Clichy, France).
RhoGDI and Rac1 polyclonal Abs were used at the dilution 1:100. Bound RhoGDI IgGs were detected with 125I-labeled protein A whereas bound Rac1 IgGs were visualized with anti-rabbit IgGs peroxidase-linked Abs and ECL.
Immunoprecipitation of MAPKs
Differentiated HL60 cells were resuspended in buffer A (107 cells/ml) and stimulated either with fMLFK (10 nM) or PMA alone (1 µg/ml) or with the combination of PMA plus 10 nM fMLFK for a total time of 3 min. In the latter case, fMLFK was added 1 min after PMA. Stimulation was terminated by a brief centrifugation and lysis of the cell pellet at 4°C in 800 µl of lysis buffer containing 10 mM Tris-HCl (pH 7.6), 150 nM NaCl, 1 mM EDTA, 1 mM sodium phosphate, 10 mM NaF, 1% Triton X-100, 0.5% Nonidet P40 (buffer B) plus 10 mM p-nitrophenylphosphate, 1 mM sodium orthovanadate, and antiproteases (1 µg/ml leupeptin, 1 µg/ml pepstatin, 1 µg/ml aprotinin, and 10 µg/ml AEBSF). Nuclei were pelleted at 10,000 x g and supernatants were incubated for 2 h at 4°C with 1 µg of a rabbit polyclonal Ab against Erk1 or Erk2. Eight milligrams of protein A-Sepharose in 100 µl PBS were added and incubation was pursued for 2 h. Protein A-Sepharose beads were washed twice with buffer B plus 0.2 mM sodium orthovanadate, then twice with kinase buffer (20 mM Tris-HCl (pH 7.5), 20 mM MgCl2, 1 mM MnCl2, 1 mM DTT, 5 mM NaF, 200 µM sodium orthovanadate). One-tenth of washed complexes were kept for Western blot analysis of immunoprecipitated MAPK. This was performed as described for PKC analysis with the following modifications. First Ab was the same as that used during the immunoprecipitation step (dilution 1/1000) and detection of MAPKs was performed with peroxidase-conjugated protein A using the ELC Western blotting detection system.
Immune complex MAPK assay
MAPK assay was initiated by resuspending the immunoprecipitates
in 40 µl of kinase buffer supplemented with 5 nM okadaic acid, 10 mM
p-nitrophenylphosphate, 50 µM ATP, 5 µCi
[
-32P]ATP and 10 µg MBP per assay. Phosphorylation
was allowed for 30 min at 30°C and terminated by addition of 40 µl
of 4-fold concentrated Laemmli buffer and boiling for 5 min.
Phosphorylated MBP was analyzed under reducing conditions on a 15%
SDS-polyacrylamide gel. Gels were fixed in 10% TCA and 20% methanol,
dried, and visualized with a Molecular Dynamics PhosphorImager.
Quantification of the phosphorylation levels was performed through
PhosphorImager.
In vivo phosphorylation of p47phox
Differentiated HL60 cells were washed twice with 175 mM NaCl, 2,5 mM KCl, and 10 mM HEPES (pH 7.5) and incubated for 3 h at 37°C in phosphate-free RPMI medium with 20 mM HEPES (pH 7.5), 20 mM glucose, and 1 mCi/ml [33P]orthophosphoric acid. Cells (2 x 107 cells/ml) were stimulated either with fMLFK (1 µM), PMA alone (1 µg/ml), or with the combination of PMA plus 10 nM fMLFK for a total time of 2 min, fMLFK being added 1 min after PMA. Stimulation was stopped by lysis in 500 µl RIPA buffer at 4°C (52) supplemented with antiphosphatases and antiproteases as described above. p47phox was immunoprecipitated as described above with a polyclonal rabbit Ab directed against the C-terminal end of p47phox. Protein A-Sepharose beads were washed sequentially with 50 mM Tris-HCl (pH 8) and 0.5 M NaCl containing 1% Triton X-100 and 0.2% SDS, with the same buffer containing 1% Triton X-100 and 0.1% SDS, with the same buffer without detergent, then with PBS. Samples were resuspended in 2-fold concentrated Laemmli buffer and loaded on a 10% SDS-polyacrylamide gel under reducing conditions. Gels were fixed in 10% TCA and 20% methanol, dried, and visualized with a Molecular Dynamics PhosphorImager.
p47phox phosphopeptide mapping
p47phox was phosphorylated and isolated from 24 x 107 cells/samples as described above. After separation on SDS-polyacrylamide gel under reducing conditions and electrotransfer on nitrocellulose, the phosphorylated p47phox band was excised after visualization by autoradiography. Two-dimensional peptidic maps were performed according to El Benna et al. (10). In brief, the excised band was soaked in 200 µl of 0.5% polyvinyl pyrolidone 40 in 100 mM acetic acid for 30 min at 37°C. The nitrocellulose band was washed five times with water, three times with 1 ml of 50 mM NH4HCO3 (pH 8.0), and placed in 200 µl of the later buffer. Trypsin digestion was performed at 37°C for 3 h by adding 5 µg trypsin-TPCK every hour. Water (300 µl) was added and samples were freeze dried. The lyophilization step was repeated twice with 500 µl of water, once with 500 µl of electrophoresis buffer (formic acid/acetic acid/water, 1:3:36, v/v). Finally, the sample was solubilized in 6 µl electrophoresis buffer and loaded on 10 cm x 10 cm cellulose thin layer plates (Schleicher & Schüll, CERA-labo, Ecquevilly, France). Peptides were first separated by electrophoresis at 4°C for 35 min at 500 V with a LKB (Gaithersburg, MD) Multiphor apparatus. After drying, the second dimension was performed by chromatography in n-butanol/pyridine/acetic acid/water (75:50:15:60, v/v). Detection of 33P-labeled peptides was performed through PhosphorImager.
Expression of the constitutively active mutant Rac1 in the variant HL60 clone
The pEF-myc-tagged Rac1V12 expression plasmid was constructed as followed. The pMT90 plasmid kindly provided by Dr. P. Chavrier (Marseille, France) was digested with NotI and BamHI. The resulting myc-tagged Rac1V12 containing fragment was cloned between the NotI and BamHI sites of the plasmid pcDNA3.1 (In Vitrogen, Groningen, The Netherlands). The resulting plasmid was digested with PmeI and the fragment containing the myc-tagged Rac1V12 sequence was cloned into the SmaI site of a modified version of the pEF-neo plasmid kindly provided by Dr. M. C. Dinauer (Indianapolis, IN) (53).
Transfection of the variant HL60 clone was performed by electroporation with a Bio-Rad Gene Pulser apparatus, according to Tonetti et al. (54) with slight modifications. In brief, 20 µg of supercoiled plasmid DNA in TE (10 mM Tris-HCl and 1 mM EDTA (pH 8.0)) were mixed with 107 cells in 0.5 ml of phosphate-buffered sucrose (272 mM sucrose and 7 mM Na2HPO4 (pH 7.4)). Cells were electroporated with a pulse of 250 V for 1820 ms. Control cells were transfected in the same conditions with the pEF-neo plasmid. Following electroporation, cells were allowed to recover in 20 ml of culture medium for 48 h before selection with 0.6 mg of G418/ml of medium. G418-resistant transfected clones were obtained by limited dilution into 24-well microtiter plates.
The presence of the myc-tagged Rac1V12 mRNA in the G418-resistant clones was detected by a reverse transcriptase PCR assay of DNase-treated RNA. Poly(A)+ mRNA was isolated from 5 x 10 7 cells samples using the Straight As mRNA isolation system (Novagen, Madison, WI). First strand DNA synthesis was performed using random hexanucleotides as primers and Expand Reverse Transcriptase (Boehringer Mannheim). Fragments corresponding to myc-Rac1V12 and endogenic Rac1 cDNAs were amplified by PCR with the following primers: 5'-CTCATCTCAGAAGAGGATCTG-3' (sense in the myc tag sequence), 5'-CTGCCAATGTTATGGTAGATGG-3' (sense in Rac1 sequence), and 5'-AGGACTGCTCGGATCGCTTCGTC-3' (antisense in Rac1 sequence). The products were resolved on a 1% agarose gel and stained with ethidium bromide.
For detection of myc-tagged Rac1V12 protein, 5 x 107 HL60 cells transfected with either pEF-myc-Rac1V12 or pEF-neo plasmid were washed twice with 10 ml of methionine/cystine-deficient RPMI and cultured for 60 min in this culture medium. Cells at the density of 107 cells/ml were labeled by the addition of 3.75 mCi of Redivue Pro-mix L-[35S] in vitro cell labeling mix for 3 h. Cells were then washed once with 10 ml of complete RPMI and cultured for another hour in 10 ml of complete RPMI. Cell pellets were lysed in 1 ml of ice-cold RIPA buffer supplemented with protease inhibitors. Lysates were centrifuged for 5 min at 14,000 x g, and supernatants were subjected to immunoprecipitation with 10 µg of anti-c-myc mAbs (9E10) coupled to protein-G Sepharose beads, in the presence or absence of 40 µg/ml of competing c-myc peptide. After 16 h at 4°C, Sepharose beads were subjected to four washes with 1 ml of ice-cold RIPA buffer. Sepharose beads were treated with 80 µl of 2-fold Laemmli sample buffer with reducing agents for 5 min at 100°C, and loaded on a 14% SDS-polyacrylamide gel. After fixation and incubation in 1 M sodium salicylate in 20% methanol, the gel was dried and exposed to x-ray film.
| Results |
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Wild-type HL60 cells from the American Type Culture Collection
(Manassas, VA) can be differentiated to granulocyte-like cells with
DMSO or Bt2cAMP. They similarly produce superoxide in
response to PMA or N-formyl peptide (fMLFK) whatever the
differentiation protocol used. While testing a new FCS, we selected a
rapidly growing population of cells that proved to respond very poorly
to PMA when differentiated with Bt2cAMP. A clone was
further isolated on soft agar and characterized. When assayed for NADPH
oxidase activity after differentiation with DMSO, the isolated variant
HL60 cells exhibited a rapid and strong response to both
N-formyl peptide and PMA (Fig. 1
A, traces d
and e). However, after differentiation with
Bt2cAMP, the variant HL60 cells responded to a saturating
concentration of N-formyl peptide (1 µM) but virtually
failed to respond to PMA (1 µg/ml), even after a prolonged exposure
(Fig. 1
A, traces a and b,
respectively). PMA was nevertheless able to induce a strong and
sustained superoxide production in Bt2cAMP-differentiated
cells when used in conjunction with a suboptimal concentration of fMLFK
(10 nM) which failed to activate the NADPH oxidase (Fig. 1
A,
traces b and c). This sustained response
was observed independently of the order of addition of the two
agonists.
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10 nM and the concentration
for a half-maximal restoration of the PMA response was about 3 nM. In
the absence of PMA, superoxide production was detectable only for
concentrations superior to 20 nM-50 nM fMLFK. The rescue of PMA by N-formyl peptide is partially PTX-resistant
As expected, the NADPH oxidase stimulation in response to a
saturating concentration of fMLFK alone was fully inhibited by
pretreating cells for 5 h in the presence of 100 ng/ml PTX.
However, the response triggered by the combination of PMA plus 10 nM
fMLFK was never completely inhibited. About 1015% of the response
was reproducibly resistant to PTX treatment (Fig. 2
, A and B). This
suggests that although a Gi-type heterotrimeric G protein, probably
Gi2, is mainly involved in signal transduction through chemoattractant
receptor in differentiated HL60 cells, a coupling of the
N-formyl peptide receptor to PTX-resistant heterotrimeric G
protein(s) may exist in these cells. A residual amount of PTX-resistant
G
16 may still be present, although its expression has been shown to
dramatically decrease during the course of differentiation to
granulocytes (55).
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Phosphorylation of the cytosolic factor, p47phox, is
thought to be a key step in PMA- and agonist-mediated activation of the
NADPH oxidase. We therefore examined whether under PMA stimulation
p47phox was differentially phosphorylated in cells
differentiated with DMSO or Bt2cAMP. After metabolic
labeling of cells with [33P]orthophosphate and
stimulation, p47phox was isolated by immunoprecipitation and
submitted to SDS-PAGE. Consistent with the fact that about three times
as much p47phox was expressed in cells differentiated with DMSO
(Fig. 3
A), the basal level of
p47phox phosphorylation was about three times higher in cells
differentiated with DMSO than in cells differentiated with
Bt2cAMP (Fig. 3
B, lanes 1 and
3). Stimulation with 10 nM fMLFK induced only a slight
increase above this basal level of phosphorylation (data not shown). In
DMSO-differentiated cells, PMA induced a 4-fold increase in the
phosphorylation of p47phox while a 2-fold increase was observed
in Bt2cAMP-differentiated cells (Fig. 3
B,
lanes 2 and 4, respectively). No further
increase was noted when 10 nM fMLFK was subsequently added
(Fig. 3
B, lane 5).
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Expression of PKC isoforms in differentiated variant HL60 cells
Phorbol esters are direct activators of a number of PKCs. Upon
cell activation with PMA, translocation of PKC to the cell membrane has
been observed and is associated with the activation of the enzyme (56).
To examine whether the failure of PMA to activate the NADPH oxidase in
Bt2cAMP-differentiated cells could arise from a deficiency
in the expression or function of one PKC isoform, we analyzed the
distribution of the various isoforms in subcellular fractions of DMSO-
and Bt2cAMP-differentiated HL60 cells using specific Abs.
In either type of differentiated cells, isoforms
, ß,
,
,
,
,
, and
were detected (Fig. 4
). They corresponded to the isoforms
previously detected in neutrophils (8, 12, 57) or in granulocyte-type
differentiated HL60 cells (58, 59). PKC
,
, and µ were not
visible whether cells were differentiated with DMSO or
Bt2cAMP (data not shown). In nonstimulated cells, PKC
,
ß, and
were detected predominantly in the cytosolic fraction,
whereas PKC
and
were mainly recovered in the particulate
membrane fraction. Distribution of PKC isoforms
,
, and
were
almost equally distributed between the cytosolic and the particulate
membrane fraction. Treatment of cells with PMA induced a substantial
translocation of cytosolic PKC
, ß,
, and
to the
particulate membrane fraction, indicating their activation upon PMA.
Distribution of PKC
,
,
, and
appeared to be unchanged
after PMA stimulation whichever conditions were used for the
differentiation. The atypical isoforms
,
, and
, which have
been shown to be unaffected by phorbol esters (56), were not expected
to be translocated. The distribution of the most easily detectable
atypical isoform (i.e., PKC
) was not modified even when cells were
costimulated with PMA and a low concentration of N-formyl
peptide. Altogether, the results indicate that there was no obvious
abnormality in the PKC isoforms expression and distribution in
Bt2cAMP-differentiated cells.
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In neutrophils, the binding of chemoattractants to their cognate receptors results in activation of PI3K and of Erk1/2 MAPK. As these enzymes were proposed to participate in the induction of the oxidative burst, we examined in Bt2cAMP-differentiated HL60 the effects of PI3K and MEK inhibitors, namely WT and PD98059, on superoxide production and on Erk2 phosphorylating activity elicited under the various conditions of stimulation.
As illustrated in Fig. 5
, WT strongly
inhibited the response to 1 µM fMLFK (hatched bars). The extent of
inhibition obtained at 10 nM and 100 nM WT were of 50% and 80%,
respectively. PD98059 at best reduced the same response by 30%.
However, treatment of Bt2cAMP-differentiated variant HL60
cells with 10 nM or 100 nM WT or with 50 µM or 100 µM PD98059 had
only a slight inhibitory effect (inferior to 20%) on superoxide
production when cells were costimulated with PMA plus 10 nM fMLFK
(filled bars). These results suggest that, under costimulation
conditions, the activation of the NADPH oxidase complex elicited by
substimulatory concentrations of chemoattractant proceeds through a
pathway in which PI3K and MEK play no major role.
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When we analyzed lysates of differentiated HL60 cells by
immunoblotting, Rac1 was detected in the cytosolic fraction as a 23-kDa
band whether cells were differentiated with DMSO or Bt2cAMP
(Fig. 7
). Rac1 protein was not
immunodetected in the particulate fraction, and the small G protein
Rac2 was detected neither in DMSO- nor in
Bt2cAMP-differentiated cells with commercially available
Abs (data not shown). As already observed for the expression of
p47phox (see Fig. 3
A), the level of expression of
Rac1 and RhoGDI, a protein that associates with Rac in its GDP bound
form, was lower in cells differentiated with Bt2cAMP than
in cells differentiated with DMSO (Fig. 7
). The fact that the NADPH
oxidase complex is functional under chemoattractant stimulation in both
conditions of differentiation indicates that the low level of
expression of these cytosolic components is not a limiting factor in
the activation of the NADPH complex.
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| Discussion |
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We have isolated a variant HL60 cell line that is poorly responsive to PMA with respect to the activation of the NADPH oxidase after differentiation into neutrophil-like cells with Bt2cAMP. However, a normal PMA-mediated superoxide production is observed when cells are differentiated with DMSO. Although PMA is inefficient to trigger NADPH oxidase activation in Bt2cAMP-differentiated cells, it is nevertheless able to induce the phosphorylation of p47phox. Judging from the two-dimensional tryptic phosphopeptide analysis of p47phox immunoprecipitated from both Bt2cAMP- and DMSO-differentiated cells, the inability of PMA to induce superoxide production is unlikely to result from a defect in the phosphorylation of only one or a few serine phosphorylation sites of p47phox.
Thus, our results suggest that the phosphorylation of p47phox is not sufficient to trigger the activation of the NADPH oxidase. This result is consistent with the notion that the levels of p47phox phosphorylation and the rates of superoxide production are not correlated. Based on the observation that p47phox is phosphorylated in cells treated with the protein phosphatase inhibitor calyculin A without any stimulation of NADPH oxidase, it has been suggested that the phosphorylation of discrete residues may negatively regulate the NADPH oxidase (63). Several other studies have underscored that a marked reduction in the phosphorylation of p47phox is not always accompanied by an inhibition of formyl peptide-induced oxidase activity (7, 64). However, in a cell-free system, arguments have been provided for the necessity of p47phox to be phosphorylated to serve as a switch in the first step of oxidase activation (13). Our results do not allow us to conclude on the exact role of the phosphorylation of p47phox in triggering the production of superoxide, but they point out to the requirement of a second signal independent of p47phox phosphorylation.
Absence of PMA-mediated superoxide production in Bt2cAMP-differentiated variant HL60 cells does not result from a defective activation of PKC or MAPK
As phorbol esters are direct activators of a number of PKC
isoforms, the inability of PMA to activate oxidase in
Bt2cAMP-differentiated variant HL60 cells may be due to a
defective expression or a functional alteration of PKC. It has been
proposed that the PMA-sensitive ß isoforms could be involved in the
phosphorylation of p47phox (8). The lack of any obvious
difference between DMSO- and Bt2cAMP-differentiated cells
in the expression and subcellular localization of the immunoanalyzed
PKC isoforms indicates that the poor PMA-induced superoxide production
in Bt2cAMP-differentiated cells does not result from a
defective expression of any PKC isoform. One cannot conclude on the
functionality of the isoforms known not to be translocated upon PMA
stimulation (
,
, and
). However, since PMA is able to activate
Erk1/2 in Bt2cAMP-differentiated cells and based on recent
studies indicating that PKC
is critically involved in the
activation of MEK/Erk1/2 pathway (65, 66, 67), it is tempting to speculate
that the phenotype of the variant HL60 cells does not result from a
deficiency in PKC
.
Chemoattractants stimulate a second pathway that bypasses PI3K and MEK and is involved in rescuing the activation of NADPH oxidase by PMA
A major observation in this study is that despite the failure of PMA alone to trigger a production of superoxide anions in Bt2cAMP-differentiated cells, its association with nonstimulatory doses of chemoattractant restored a full and sustained NADPH oxidase response. The use of specific inhibitors gave us some hints in deciphering the signaling pathway elicited by substimulatory concentrations of chemoattractants. Interestingly, the oxidative response elicited by the addition of a substimulatory concentration of fMLFK with PMA was not inhibited by either WT, PD98059, or the combination of both inhibitors. Moreover, under costimulation conditions, Erk2 activity was dramatically repressed by the combination of WT and PD98059. These observations suggest that low concentrations of chemoattractant activate a pathway bypassing PI3K, MEK, and the MAPK Erk1/2.
The involvement of Erk1/2 in the activation of NADPH oxidase by saturating concentrations of formyl peptide is still a matter of debate. These MAPKs have been proposed as possible effectors of NADPH oxidase activation, mainly because the activation of both NADPH oxidase and Erk1/2 is inhibited by WT (39, 61) or by PD98059 (39, 40, 41, 42). However, the dose-dependent effects of these inhibitors are dissimilar regarding Erks activity or NADPH oxidase activity (44, 45, 46) and Erk1/2 activity could be dissociated from the oxidative burst in both human neutrophils and differentiated HL60 cells (43). In this study, the lack of a strong inhibitory effect of PD98059 on the production of superoxide could result from a partial inhibition of Erk2 activity when cells were stimulated by the chemoattractant. Our observation that the MEK activation inhibitor (PD98059) modestly repressed Erk2 activation by formyl peptide while having a stronger effect on the activation by phorbol ester suggests that the activation of Erk2 by formyl peptide is partially independent from MEK. Another possibility is that MEK is differentially inhibited by PD98059 depending on whether MEK is activated by formyl peptide or PMA. It has been recently shown that MEK can be differentially activated (via a Raf-dependent or a Raf-independent pathway) according to the PKC isotype that is activated (67).
Taken together, our results suggest that chemoattractant-mediated
activation of NADPH oxidase involves two pathways. The first pathway,
which requires high concentrations of chemoattractant, flows through
PI3K, whereas the second pathway would diverge at a point upstream of
WT-sensitive PI3K and MEK. This second pathway can be activated by low
concentrations of chemoattractant but is not sufficient, alone, to
elicit oxidant secretion. It is likely that the two pathways actually
act in concert when NADPH oxidase is activated by a saturating
concentration of chemoattractant (see Fig. 8
). In the variant HL60
cells differentiated with Bt2cAMP, PMA appears to place the
complex in a primed state awaiting further stimulus before the NADPH
oxidase response is elicited. The aforementioned PI3K and
MEK-independent pathway provides the switch to turn on the oxidase
complex. The extremely low concentrations of chemoattractant that are
required to turn on this "oxidase switch" suggest that the second
pathway is similar to that involved in the chemotaxis of phagocytic
leukocytes. Noticeably, some authors using the MEK/Erk inhibitor
PD98059 failed to inhibit granulocytes functions typically induced by
low doses of chemoattractant, i.e., chemotaxis and actin polymerization
(42, 46, 68). Although they affected chemotaxis, PI3K inhibitors did
not prevent the increase in total F actin in agonist-induced
neutrophils (33, 37, 69).
Role of Rac in the complementation of the PMA defect in Bt2 cAMP-differentiated variant HL60 cells
Rac regulates the activity of the NADPH oxidase in phagocytic leukocytes by mechanisms that are not fully understood (3, 15). In variant HL60 cells, the restoration of the PMA-dependent respiratory burst following expression of the constitutively active myc-Rac1V12 further underlines a role of Rac in oxidase activation in intact cells. The contribution of Rac as part of the oxidase enzymatic complex has been fairly demonstrated by the requirement of the Rac1/2 protein in oxidant-generating cell-free systems (16, 17, 20) and by the agonist-induced translocation of Rac to the plasma membrane (24, 25). In addition to its role in switching on oxidant formation at the level of the plasma membrane, Rac also appeared to be connected with upstream signaling mechanisms. It has been previously reported that the p21-activated kinase (PAK) and its upstream regulator Rac regulate the activity of p38 SAPK (70, 71, 72). PAK also proved to phosphorylate p47phox in vitro in a Rac-GTP-dependent manner (73). The involvement of p38 SAPK in the signal pathway leading to superoxide production has been recently underscored in several studies (38, 41, 47, 48, 49, 50). Therefore, the question arises as to whether the restoration of the respiratory burst with the active mutant Rac1V12 takes place at the level of the oxidase complex or in upstream signaling. However, in Bt2cAMP-differentiated variant cells, endogenous Rac is supposedly unaltered based upon the fact that the enzymatic complex is functional under chemoattractant stimulation. The weak ability of PMA-challenged Bt2cAMP-differentiated cells to secrete oxidant is much probably due to an inefficient signaling upstream of Rac. Although the phenotype is not expressed in DMSO-differentiated cells, one cannot exclude that the defect does not exist since it could be compensated by the higher level of expression of the NADPH cytosolic factors, p47phox and Rac1. Because PMA-induced oxidase could be restored either by addition of low doses of chemoattractant or by expression of myc-Rac1V12, we suggest that Rac belongs to the second aforementioned, PI3K- and MEK-independent pathway. As suggested above, this second pathway may be part of the pathway involved in chemotaxis and F-actin assembly for Rac is also known to regulate cytoskeleton rearrangements (74). Interestingly, Arcaro et al. (75) recently reported that the chemoattractant-dependent activation of Rac in neutrophils triggered the uncapping of actin filaments, independently of PI3K.
In summary, PMA and low concentrations of chemoattractant activate two
distinct, restricted pathways that complement each other to fulfill the
requirements for NADPH oxidase activation. As illustrated in Fig. 9
, at high concentrations of
chemoattractant the array of activated effector enzymes overlaps with
that activated by PMA alone, leading to NADPH oxidase activation. The
observation that a PMA-dependent activation is restored in cells
transfected with myc-Rac1V12 cDNA suggests that, in
Bt2cAMP-differentiated cells, a cross-talk between a
PMA-activated PKC pathway and components upstream the activation of Rac
is impaired. The reason of this defect is unknown but may result from a
lower expression of regulatory components involved in PMA-mediated Rac
activation in cells differentiated with Bt2cAMP. It is
tempting to speculate that low concentrations of chemoattractant can
restore PMA-mediated NADPH activation by stimulating a WT- and
PD98059-resistant signaling pathway in which Rac plays a pivotal role.
The possibility to stably transfect the cells and the sensitivity of
the superoxide production assay (especially when using low
concentrations of chemoattractant combined with PMA) make this variant
HL60 cell line an interesting tool to decipher the hierarchy of
signaling events upstream and downstream of Rac.
|
| Acknowledgments |
|---|
| Footnotes |
|---|
2 Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. Marianne Tardif, Département de Biologie Moléculaire et Structurale/Biochimie et Biophysique des Systèmes Intégrés (UMR 314 CEA/CNRS), Centre dEtudes Nucléaires de Grenoble (CEN/G), 17 rue des Martyrs, 38054 Grenoble Cedex 9, France. ![]()
3 Abbreviations used in this paper: PKC, protein kinase C; PI3K, phosphatidylinositol-3 kinase; fMLFK, N-formyl-Met-Leu-Phe-Lys; Bt2cAMP, dibutyryl cyclic AMP; PTX, Bordetella pertussis toxin; WT, wortmannin; MBP, myelin basic protein; Erk, extracellular signal regulated kinase; MAPK, mitogen-activated protein kinase; MEK, mitogen extracellular-regulated kinase; SAPK, stress-activated protein kinase. ![]()
Received for publication April 30, 1998. Accepted for publication August 17, 1998.
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