Phosphatase inhibitors modulate the growth-regulatory effects of human tumor necrosis factor on tumor and normal cells.

Tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha) has been shown to inhibit the growth of tumor cells and stimulate the growth of certain normal cells in vitro. The mechanism by which TNF exerts its cell growth-regulatory effects is not known. In this report, we investigated the effects of phosphatase inhibitors on the cell growth-inhibitory effects of TNF on L-929, a highly sensitive murine connective tissue tumor cell line, and on the growth-stimulatory effects of TNF on normal human fibroblasts. The antiproliferative effects of TNF on L-929 cells were inhibited by orthovanadate, an inhibitor of phosphotyrosine phosphatases, in a dose-dependent manner. Okadaic acid, which is a specific inhibitor of phosphoserine- and phosphothreonine-specific phosphatases, also blocked the growth-inhibitory effects of TNF, suggesting that TNF may function through the activation of certain phosphatases. These inhibitors had no effect on TNF receptors. Addition of phosphatase inhibitor, even 12 h after the treatment of cells with TNF, was sufficient to block the antiproliferative effects of the cytokine, suggesting that the inhibitor is acting at a late event in the pathway of action of TNF. Cells were protected by orthovanadate from the cytotoxic effects of TNF even in the presence of actinomycin D or cycloheximide, thus indicating the lack of a requirement for de novo protein synthesis. Orthovanadate altered the cell morphology from flat spindle shapes to rounded ones. Besides anticellular effects, a phosphatase inhibitor also suppressed the proliferative effects of TNF on human fibroblasts. These results thus suggest that phosphatases may be needed for both proliferative and antiproliferative effects of this cytokine. This is the first report to suggest that phosphatases play a role in the growth-regulatory action of TNF.