Successive occupancy by immediate early transcriptional factors of the tyrosine hydroxylase gene TRE and CRE sites in PACAP-stimulated PC12 pheochromocytoma cells.

We previously demonstrated that pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide (PACAP) coordinately upregulates the expression of the tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) and dopamine beta-hydroxylase (DBH) genes by activating the cyclic AMP (cAMP) and protein kinase C (PKC) signaling pathways. In this study, we examined the effects of PACAP on the expression of fos and jun immediate early gene (IEG) families, expression of which can be up-regulated by both PKC and cAMP signaling pathways, in rat pheochromocytoma cell line PC12 cells. PACAP potently stimulated the expression of c-fos, fosB junB and junD, but not c-jun mRNAs, at doses of 0.1-10 nM, as revealed by Northern blot analysis. The effects of PACAP on the expression of these mRNAs in PC12 cells was rapid (30-60 min) and dose-dependent. PACAP administration induced maximum expression of c-fos, fosB and junB mRNA after 60 min, and of junD mRNA after 8 h. Gel mobility shift assays using synthetic DNA oligonucleotides corresponding to the TH 5'-flanking region and nuclear extracts from PC12 cells demonstrated that PACAP enhanced formation of the specific protein complexes which bind to the TPA-responsive element (TRE) and cAMP-responsive element (CRE), respectively. Gel shift and supershift analyses showed that the TRE-binding factors and CRE-binding factors comprised fosB, c-fos, junB, and junD, and CRE-binding protein (CREB) and junD, respectively. JunB was dominant in the TRE-binding complexes at 4 h after addition of PACAP, whereas both JunD and JunB were dominant at 12 h. These results suggest that agonist occupancy of PACAP receptors activates transcriptional factors (Fos/Jun families and CREB) that interact with the TRE and CRE sites of the TH 5'-flanking region, contributing to transcriptional activation of TH gene.