p85α Acts as a Novel Signal Transducer for Mediation of Cellular Apoptotic Response to UV Radiation

Abstract

Apoptosis is an important cellular response to UV radiation (UVR), but the corresponding mechanisms remain largely unknown. Here we report that the p85α regulatory subunit of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI-3K) exerted a proapoptotic role in response to UVR through the induction of tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) gene expression. This special effect of p85α was unrelated to the PI-3K-dependent signaling pathway. Further evidence demonstrated that the inducible transcription factor NFAT3 was the major downstream target of p85α for the mediation of UVR-induced apoptosis and TNF-α gene transcription. p85α regulated UVR-induced NFAT3 activation by modulation of its nuclear translocation and DNA binding and the relevant transcriptional activities. Gel shift assays and site-directed mutagenesis allowed the identification of two regions in the TNF-α gene promoter that served as the NFAT3 recognition sequences. Chromatin immunoprecipitation assays further confirmed that the recruitment of NFAT3 to the endogenous TNF-α promoter was regulated by p85α upon UVR exposure. Finally, the knockdown of the NFAT3 level by its specific small interfering RNA decreased UVR-induced TNF-α gene transcription and cell apoptosis. The knockdown of endogenous p85α blocked NFAT activity and TNF-α gene transcription, as well as cell apoptosis. Thus, we demonstrated p85α-associated but PI-3K-independent cell death in response to UVR and identified a novel p85α/NFAT3/TNF-α signaling pathway for the mediation of cellular apoptotic responses under certain stress conditions such as UVR.

We thank Yasuo Terauchi and Takashi Kadowaki for kindly providing p85α^+/+ and p85α^−/− primary MEFs and W. Ogawa for providing expression plasmid containing full-length p85α cDNA. We are grateful for the help of Haobin Chen and Ping Zhang for their technical discussion.

This work was supported in part by grants from NIH NCI (R01 CA094964, R01 CA112557, and R01 CA103180) and NIH NIEHS (R01 ES012451 and ES000260).