Phorbol acetate enhances the phosphorylation of cytokeratins 8 and 18 in human colonic epithelial cells.

The phosphorylation of epithelial-specific cytokeratin (CK) 8 and 18 was studied in the human colonic cell line HT29. Metabolic labelling of cells with orthophosphate resulted in phosphorylation of cytokeratins 8/18 on serine residues. When phorbol acetate was added to labelled cells, a 2.2-fold increase in CK8/18 phosphate labelling was noted, whereas increasing intracellular cAMP levels using forskolin or 8-Br-cAMP showed no significant change in CK phosphorylation. CKs8/18 were also phosphorylated by added PKC in the presence of [gamma-32P]ATP. Tryptic peptide map analysis of the phosphorylated CK8 species showed that treatment of cells with 8-Br-cAMP or phorbol acetate generated a phosphopeptide not seen in control cells. In contrast, tryptic peptide maps of phosphorylated CK18 showed no discernable differences. Our results support a role for PKC in the phosphorylation of epithelial cytokeratins, with some phosphorylation sites being modulated by cAMP dependent protein kinase.