[Studies on cell signaling immunomodulated murine peritoneal suppressor macrophages: LPS and PMA mediate the activation of RAF-1, MAPK p44 and MAPK p42 and p38 MAPK].

Monocytes-macrophages which serve as host immune cells to kill pathogens can often be "activated" after exposing to viruses, bacteria, cytokines as well as chemical substances, However, it is paradoxical that highly activated macrophages can be induced to become the suppressor ones by live microbes, microbial products, tumor, and autoimmune disease, although the mechanism remains unknown. Our previous experimental studies have shown that immuno-suppressor activities of suppressor macrophages on T, B and NK cells can be prevented by the treatment with LPS or supernatant in vitro from mitogen-stimulated lymphocytes, while, at the same time, the tumoricidal activities of those macrophages can be kept or even enhanced following the same treatment. This phenomenon was then termed as "immune modulation" For the understanding of its mechanism, we are now undertaking signal transduction in modulated macrophages. Since mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) is an integration point of different signal transduction pathways, its cascade and regulation of activation are being investigated extensively by the assay of electrophoresis mobility shift. Recent results suggested that interaction of ligand-receptor triggers protein tyrosine kinase(PTK) activation leading to Ras-GTP binding with Raf-1 to phosphorylate MAPK kinase (MAPKK), the specific activator of MAPK. It is reported that PKC-alpha can directly phosphorylate or activate Raf-1 in NIH3 T3 cells. Raf-1 (74 KDa), with an intrinsic serine (Ser)-threonine (The) kinase activity, becomes hyperphosphorylated after activation which can be followed by gel mobility shift test. It has also been shown that a variety of extracellular factors stimulate a pair of MAPK p44 and MAPK p42 of MAPK family members. A significant property of activation of ERK 1 and ERK 2 is the requirement for the phosphorylation of both Thr-183 and Tyr-185 (at TEY motif) within in its protein kinase subdomain VIII. More recently, two other MAPK subtypes, p38 MAPK (mammalian equivalents of HOG1 in yeast) and JNK MAPK have been discovered. The requirement for activation of p38 MAPK for both Thr-180 and Tyr-182 (at TGY motif) has been shown. p38 MAPK is important in certain transcriptional regulatory pathways, since it can phosphorylate the following transcriptional factors: 1) Elk at Ser 383/389 for binding with SRE motif; 2). ATF 2 at Ser 69/71, forming a complex with Myc for DNA binding at CRE motif; 3) Max at Ser-62 to combine DNA of E-Box motif. p38 MAPK can be activated by LPS, inflammatory cytokines, such as TNF and IL-1, osmolarity. To examine the possibility that whether activation of Raf-1 and ERK 1, ERK2 and p38 MAPK can be regulated directly or/and differently by PKC and PKA pathways, herbimycin A (Ki = 0.9 mumol/L), a potent PTK inhibitor (J. Immunol. 155:3944-4003, 1995) at 2 mumol/L concentration was utilized to block Ras/Raf-1/MAPK cascade. After pre-incubation of macrophages with herbimycin A for 30 min or 90 min, cells were treated with LPS (10 micrograms/ml) and PMA (100 nmol/L) for 15 min. No inhibition of phosphorylation of Raf-1, MAPK p44 and MAPK p42 in response to LPS and PMA was observed (Fig. 1 and 3). However, forskolin, a cAMP inducer for protein kinase A (PKA) activation, inhibited the phosphorylation of LPS- and PMA-stimulated Raf-1, MAPK p44 and MAPK p42 (Fig. 2 and 4). Similarly, in agreement with a very recent report from David, M et al in NIH, in which they indicated that forskolin (30 mumol/L) inhibited IFN-beta-stimulated ERK activity by U 266 cells (J. Biol. Chem. 271: 4585-4588 1996), we found that the levels of phosphorylations of Raf-1 and ERK1 and ERK2 were declined when forskolin (30 mumol/L) was added to macrophages for 20 min at 37 degrees C prior to the stimulation by LPS and PMA. Interestingly, under the same condition, forskolin (30 mumol/L) stimulated the phosphorylation of LPS- and PMA-triggered p38 MAPK of murine peritoneal suppressor macrophages, suggesting that activatio