Stimulation of Fas (CD95) induces production of pro-inflammatory mediators through ERK/JNK-dependent activation of NF-κB in THP-1 cells.

Although Fas is known to be an apoptosis triggering molecule, accumulating studies indicate that Fas has non-apoptotic functions in certain cases. In an effort to identify the role of Fas in macrophage function, the human macrophage-like cell line THP-1 was analyzed after treatment with agonistic anti-Fas monoclonal antibody or co-incubation with FasL-expressing cells. Stimulation of Fas induced the expression of pro-inflammatory mediators such as matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-9 and IL-8. The specificity of the reaction was confirmed by the transfection of Fas-specific siRNAs which resulted in a suppression of Fas expression as well as the responsiveness to the agonistic antibody. Utilization of various signaling inhibitors and ELISA-based NF-κB DNA binding assay demonstrated that the signaling initiated from Fas is mediated by mitogen activated protein kinases (MAPKs) including extracellular-signal-regulated kinase (ERK) and c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) which induce subsequent activation of NF-κB. Furthermore, mixed cell culture experiment demonstrated that Fas can be activated through interaction with membrane-bound form of FasL during cell-to-cell interaction. These data indicate that Fas plays a role as an activation inducing molecule through interaction with its counterpart and Fas-mediate events are mediated by ERK/JNK MAPKs which subsequently activate NF-κB for the transcriptional activation of pro-inflammatory mediators.