A Novel Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinase Phosphatase Is an Important Negative Regulator of Lipopolysaccharide-Mediated c-Jun N-Terminal Kinase Activation in Mouse Macrophage Cell Lines

Abstract

We have isolated a cDNA homologous to known dual-specificity phosphatases from a mouse macrophage cDNA library and termed it MKP-M (for mitogen-activated protein kinase phosphatase isolated from macrophages). Three other presumed splice variant isoforms have also been identified for MKP-M. The longest and most abundant mRNA contains an open reading frame corresponding to 677 amino acids and produces an 80-kDa protein. The deduced amino acid sequence of MKP-M is most similar to those of hVH-5 (or mouse M3/6) and VHP1, aCaenorhabditis elegans tyrosine phosphatase. It includes an N-terminal rhodanase homology domain, the extended active-site sequence motif (V/L)X(V/I)HCXAG(I/V)SRSXT(I/V)XXAY(L/I)M (where X is any amino acid), and a C-terminal PEST sequence. Northern blot analysis revealed a dominant MKP-M mRNA species of approximately 5.5 kb detected ubiquitously among all tissues examined. MKP-M was constitutively expressed in mouse macrophage cell lines, and its expression levels were rapidly increased by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) stimulation but not by tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α), gamma interferon, interleukin-2 (IL-2), or IL-15 stimulation. Immunocytochemical analysis showed MKP-M to be present within cytosol. When expressed in COS7 cells, MKP-M blocks activation of mitogen-activated protein kinases with the selectivity c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) ≫ p38 = extracellular signal-regulated kinase. Furthermore, expression of a catalytically inactive form of MKP-M in a mouse macrophage cell line increased the intensity and duration of JNK activation and TNF-α secretion after LPS stimulation, suggesting that MKP-M is at least partially responsible for the desensitization of LPS-mediated JNK activation and cytokine secretion in macrophages.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank K. Itano and A. Nishikawa for their technical assistance.

This work was supported in part by grants from Ono Pharmaceutical Company, the Yokoyama Research Foundation for Clinical Pharmacology, and the Naito Foundation (to T.M.); the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture of the Japanese Government (JSPS-RFTF97L00703) and the Yakult Bioscience Foundation (to Y.Y.); and the National Cancer Institute (CA42533) (to A.S.K.).