Stimulation of the human neutrophil respiratory burst by formyl peptides is primed by a protein kinase inhibitor, staurosporine.

Stimulation of polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMN) by phorbol esters or formyl peptides (fMLP) generates large quantities of superoxide anion, the so-called respiratory burst (RB), a phenomenon associated with intense phosphorylation of a 47-kD protein (p47 phox). Staurosporine, a potent protein kinase C (PKC) antagonist, inhibits both responses when PMN are stimulated by phorbol myristate acetate (PMA), suggesting a positive role of PKC. In this study, we reassessed these PMN responses in fMLP-stimulated cells and found that staurosporine had opposite effects depending on the duration of PMN treatment with staurosporine. Short PMN incubation (0.5 to 3 minutes) with 25 to 100 nmol/L staurosporine inhibited the fMLP-induced RB, whereas longer treatment (15 to 20 minutes) enhanced it by up to about 200% relative to controls. In contrast, the PMA-mediated RB was depressed by staurosporine in a time-dependent manner. A primed fMLP-induced RB was also observed after long (15 minutes) PMN treatment with 5 to 100 mumol/L H-7, whereas shorter treatment (5 minutes) resulted in a small decrease in RB. By contrast, the tyrosine kinase inhibitor genistein (2 to 80 mumol/L) depressed fMLP-induced RB whatever the duration of PMN treatment. Analysis of 32P-phosphorylated proteins in fMLP-stimulated cells showed that short PMN treatment (< 8 minutes) with staurosporine abolished the phosphorylation of the 47-kD protein, which was identified as p47 phox, whereas long treatment partially restored p47 phox phosphorylation up to approximately 50% of the control value. In PMA-stimulated PMN, phosphorylation was reduced in a time-dependent manner. Furthermore, the staurosporine-primed RB and the staurosporine-induced recovery of phosphorylation were inhibited by sphingosine but not by genistein. Thus, in addition to its known depressive effect, staurosporine markedly potentiated fMLP-stimulated RB as a function of the duration of PMN treatment. The restoration of p47 phox phosphorylation suggests that staurosporine may alter the interactions between different protein kinases, producing marked time-dependent changes in signalling pathways. These data emphasize the care that should be taken in interpreting data obtained using this kinase inhibitor that may, however, be helpful analyzing in signalling pathways.