The Drosophila Atypical Protein Kinase C-Ref(2)P Complex Constitutes a Conserved Module for Signaling in the Toll Pathway

Abstract

Recent results showed the critical role of the mammalian p62-atypical protein kinase C (aPKC) complex in the activation of NF-κB in response to different stimuli. Here we demonstrate using the RNA interference technique on Schneider cells that the Drosophila aPKC (DaPKC) is required for the stimulation of the Toll-signaling pathway, which activates the NF-κB homologues Dif and Dorsal. However, DaPKC does not appear to be important for the other Drosophila NF-κB signaling cascade, which activates the NF-κB homologue Relish in response to lipopolysaccharides. Interestingly, DaPKC functions downstream of the nuclear translocation of Dorsal or Dif, controlling the transcriptional activity of the Drosomycin promoter. We also show that the Drosophila Ref(2)P protein is the homologue of mammalian p62 as it binds to DaPKC, its overexpression is sufficient to activate the Drosomycin but not the Attacin promoter, and its depletion severely impairs Toll signaling. Collectively, these results demonstrate the conservation of the p62-aPKC complex for the control of innate immunity signal transduction in Drosophila melanogaster.

This work was supported by grants SAF1999-0053, 2FD97-1429, and SAF2000-0175 from MCYT and by 08.1/0060/2000 from CAM and has benefited from an institutional grant from Fundación Ramón Areces to the CBM. A.A. is a fellow from the Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología. J.M. is the recipient of Ir Ayuda de la Fundación Juan March a la Investigación Básica.

We thank Svenja Stoven and Dan Hultmark for reagents and for critically reading the manuscript.