Okadaic acid biologically mimics the role of calcium/phospholipid dependent kinase inhibitors in the process of HL-60 cell differentiation.

Okadaic acid, a newly recognized protein phosphatase inhibitor and a non-TPA type tumor promoter, enhanced 1 alpha 25(OH)2D3(D3)-induced HL-60 cell differentiation into monocyte/macrophage lineage but did not affect dibutyryl cyclic AMP (dbcAMP)-induced differentiation into granulocytic lineage. Okadaic acid alone did not induce any differentiation. The process of D3-induced HL-60 cell differentiation on cultivation in magnesium deficient medium can be divided into two steps namely commitment and phenotypic expression as we have previously reported (J Cell Physiol 1987;131:50; Cell Growth Diff 1991;2:415), and the effect of okadaic acid on each step was studied. The results obtained indicated that okadaic acid inhibited commitment and enhanced phenotypic expression. We have previously shown that PKC has a dual action in the process of differentiation, i.e. as a positive regulatory signal in commitment and as a negative one in phenotypic expression. Thus, although okadaic acid has been reported to enhance the phosphorylation of various proteins that are also phosphorylated by PKC, we found that it mimics the role of PKC inhibitors such as H7 and staurosporine in D3-induced HL-60 cell differentiation.