Activation by thyroid stimulating hormone of nerve growth factor-induced gene-B expression in thyrocytes in culture: relation with proliferation and specific gene expression.

Nerve growth factor-induced gene-B (NGFI-B) is an immediate early gene first found as a part of the PC12 cell response to NGF (Milbrandt, J., Science 238 (1987) 797-799). We have previously reported that NGFI-B mRNA is strongly upregulated by thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) in dog thyrocytes in culture (Pichon et al., Endocrinology 137 (1996) 4691-4698). In this study, we have analyzed the regulation of NGFI-B mRNA expression by a variety of agents acting on thyrocytes proliferation and/or differentiation. We show that: (1) the induction of NGFI-B mRNA is stronger after stimulation of the cAMP cascade, but it is not restricted to this signaling pathway; (2) the powerful mitogens for thyroid cells EGF and HGF have little or no effect on NGFI-B mRNA induction; (3) NGFI-B mRNA is induced by anisomycin at a subinhibitory concentration for protein synthesis, and is superinduced by the combination of TSH and anisomycin; this treatment decreases the TSH-induced proliferation levels, but does not inhibit the induction of some differentiation markers; and (4) both in dog and in pig thyrocytes, NGFI-B mRNA induction is observed after a variety of treatments stimulating differentiation, but without proliferative effects. Our results therefore suggest that NGFI-B mRNA induction might not be related to TSH-induced thyrocyte proliferation, but could participate in the differentiation program triggered by TSH.